Stolen Moments of Intimacy
by Dark Hope Assassin
Summary: As one of Shibusen’s teams, their goal was to make her into Shinigami’s weapon—a Death Scythe. But what happens beyond that goal? This thought plagues Tsubaki and, as always in such cases, it’s up to Black Star to save the day.
1. Art of Mediating

_**Art of Mediating**_

* * *

There was a big commotion somewhere in the large maze of hallways in Shibusen. People were being loud and obnoxious, getting in the way of one Maka Albarn's book reading.

This obstacle presented quite a large annoyance to said girl, to which fact the pulsing veins on her forehead were clear evidence. She grinded her teeth and her book shook in her trembling hands.

"Arrrgh, darn it! What in Shinigami-sama's name is this racket?! You can't tell whether there are students in here or _barbarians_!" she roared in her displeasure, successfully drawing the attention of her classmates still in the room during recess.

"Cheh; some small people trying to act big by making a ruckus – they don't even hold a candle to this big me!" Black Star threw in though no one had cared enough about what he had had to say. But Soul knew that it was the guy's way of saying he wasn't very happy about the uproar either.

"Jeesh, people these days. I know that it's good to have competitive spirit but theirs is going a bit too far with it… That's just too uncool," the white-haired weapon complained, scratching his head noncommittally.

Among the small friend group was the only amount of silence that could be had in the classroom during the recess period. What was more surprising was that the lack of any continuation to their rants was what drew Maka's attention from her resumed reading.

"That was weird – I thought Tsubaki-chan was going to defend those low-lives like she always does but it doesn't seem she's here to begin with…" Maka said in an almost lamenting tone. She had probably been looking forward to admonishing the older girl for always being on the side of those their friend group had taken upon themselves to badmouth.

Black Star, who had been laying back in his chair in his typical pose – feet on the desk, hands crossed behind his head, lazily cracked an eye open in interest at his attention being directed towards his partner's whereabouts.

Soul face faulted at his meister's antics.

"Will you start listening to people when they talk to you? Seriously… She told you guys she was going to freshen up in the washroom just a few minutes ago! Do neither of you ever listen to anyone?" Soul chastised his fellow technicians but neither of them looked really repentant for their lack of attention span.

Black Star's other eye cracked open as well, his eyebrows knitting together.

"She sure is taking a lot of time for just going to the bathroom," he noted to no one in particular, probably not even intending for anyone to hear.

"You really have no idea about those things, do you?" Soul rebutted him, cocking an eyebrow at him. "Girls take more time with these things than we do, so—"

"It's because I have a very good idea what might be taking her so long that I'm asking, damn it…" Black Star muttered to himself this time, not even waiting for Soul to finish his retarded explanations on female behavior before getting up from his seat and shoving his hands in his pockets. "I'll go see what those small fries are going on about – their bickering is giving me a headache unfit for a man who has surpassed God," he then said for everyone to hear, setting a course for the room's exit.

Maka and Soul sweat-dropped almost simultaneously. They hadn't been aware when exactly had been the time that their boasting friend had already achieved his dream of surpassing the deities.

In a hallway very nearby Crescent Moon class there was a large group of gathered students – technicians and weapons alike – cluttered around a squabbling pair, who looked very nearly ready to jump each other and tear one another limb from limb if the looks on their faces were any indication.

"I'm warning you one last time, Fred – take what you said back and apologize or I'm going to smash your ugly head in!" one infuriated teenager began, inching closer to his antagonist, the sole thing keeping him from launching at the other boy the slightly outstretched feminine hand in his direction.

"Why should I have to apologize to the spawn of a witch?" the other parried with as much malignance in his tone as the first. Another gentle feminine hand softly settled on his shoulder in a pacifying way, successfully—for the time being, at least—making the boy cool off a bit from his murderous intents towards the guy in front of him.

"Now, now, boys, no need for name-calling and bitterness," Tsubaki – ever the mediator in fights, even in ones that did not concern her in any way – placated smoothly, trying her best to stop the quarrel from escalating into a bloody fist-fight. "Can't we all just calm down and talk this out civilly? We're all Shibusen students so we should support one another, right?"

Cold sweat was rolling in droplets down her back and the sides of her face. She hated misunderstandings of any sort and she did all in her might to really get everyone to get along most of the time, but that didn't make her feel any better while preventing bloodbaths any. After all, any moment they could—

"And who the hell are _you_ and who invited you to butt your goody-two-shoes face in this, huh?" the one called Fred reared in on her, channeling his anger at the one closest to him.

—start venting their frustrations at her for trying to be the buffer and things could get _really_ ugly…

Tsubaki began sweating bullets at the way this guy she'd never even seen before was now glaring deathly daggers at her. She suddenly wished she had never intervened in the first place.

"Uh, umm…" she began pitifully, which seemed to only fuel both young men in turning on her.

"Yeah, who the hell asked you to interfere, huh? Don't you know not to stick your neck in other people's business, eh?!"

Uh-oh, this was definitely not good. They were both looking quite blood-thirsty and the direction of the situation had taken a turn for something really bad in a _really_ short amount of time.

"Well, uh, you see, that is…" the girl shrunk back, appalled by the idea that she'd have to resort to violence for self-defense pretty soon if things kept going the way they were.

"I'm gonna teach ya something good, missy—" Fred began, grabbing Tsubaki by the shoulder in a very ungentlemanly way which made her wince and inch back some more, clutching her eyes tightly shut in dread of what was surely going to come soon, "—so listen closely—"

Just as the Natsukasa daughter thought she was really going to get it—because she refused to use force on her fellow Shibusen students—for being nice enough to try to prevent a verbal fight from becoming a physical one, the self-righteous speech of the more violent one was cut short, his words dying in his throat for whatever reason. What was even more inexplicable was that even his rough hand, previously clutching her delicate shoulder hard enough to bruise later, had now left her.

Tsubaki looked around to see what could've caused this sudden change of attitude but she didn't manage to see quite far for a very familiar back was blocking her view of her assailant.

Taking in her surroundings, the girl realized that the temperature in the hallway might as well have dropped a couple of dozen degrees from just a minute ago.

"I suggest you keep your filthy little paws to yourself, you sorry excuse for a human being." The whole school was so used to seeing Black Star roaring idiocies in front of everyone in a boastful, merry voice for such a long time so when the group cluttered around the scene heard him say those words in the lowest and coldest of tones possible, the threat in them couldn't have been more obvious. "That is, if you want to keep them."

Black Star had had a feeling this would be where he'd find her. In the midst of a pair of imbeciles, trying to play the mediator and getting caught in the cross-fire in the end. But shoving his way through the throng of people and seeing that moron—with an existence so puny that a big man like himself had never even seen his ugly mug before—with his moronic hand grabbing Tsubaki like he had… The azure-haired teen hadn't wasted even a breath before catching that guy by the dirty limb that was manhandling his partner, successfully cutting all blood supply to said extremity, and removing it from her vicinity.

The crowd around had fallen completely silent, feeling acutely the newfound tension in the air that the arrival of the boisterous youth had brought on. The two guys previously squabbling were the ones to shrink back this time, realizing the mistake they had made in turning in on that particular girl.

The look this guy that was her partner was now giving them was positively murderous and absolutely chilling.

"And I'll be the one doing the teaching here." The two boys swallowed dryly, their throats suddenly constricted. "I'll teach you how to turn on the person who's trying to keep your sorry asses from getting in trouble."

He cracked his knuckles meaningfully and the recipients of his oncoming wrath paled like sheets.

"You seem itching for a fight, so I'll be nice and be your opponent. I'll grind into your bodies since your heads are too thick to understand words just how badly it can hurt when you make a wrong judgement call." He bared his teeth at them, positively scaring even the bystanders in the throng around the four of them. "Just don't expect me to go easy on you just because you're a lower form of life because when I'm done with you guys, not even your mommies will be able to recognize your despicable mugs."

The offenders—having finally summoned some leg-power after their initial petrifaction—didn't need any more invitation to scurry off and run for their dear lives. Most of the crowd also hurried off in all sorts of directions before the attention of the positively moody Black Star could be turned on them.

Tsubaki blinked self-consciously after the people surrounding them had diminished to just a few stray souls who were unaware of what class they had been on their way to before coming to see what the commotion had been about. During that whole time, her meister had had his back facing her and she could feel the waves of tension still emanating thickly off of him.

It was really rather fascinating when you considered it this way – she knew perfectly well what to say or do when she had to soothe some stranger's temper but she never really got the hang of placating the person closest to her in moments like these.

"Black Star…" she began uncertainly, entirely unclear what she was going to say before actually saying it. Improvising had never been her forte, so this was probably not going to end well… "There was really no need to be so _extreme_ about this—"

Her reasoning was cut off when her technician turned around to smother her mid-sentence with the most intense look he'd had in a while. There was such a tight tangle of such strong emotions in those dark, emerald eyes of his that it cut all her acquittals short.

"What were you _thinking_, coming between brain-dead hormonally driven morons, Tsubaki?" he chided, putting his fists on his hips as he did so. "Did you have a death wish or something? I know you don't like to see folks fighting but sometimes you should really just let them go at it so they can move on. And _before_ you land yourself in a hospital or something."

He'd been worried about her. Because Shibusen was home to some of the strongest, deadliest of weapons and weapon technicians in the whole world.

She smiled lopsidedly and clasped her hands together behind her back under his close scrutiny.

"I don't know what you're talking about. I had the whole situation under control, but then you decided to interfere just as I was handling it smoothly," she said in her mischievous tone.

Black Star face-faulted and barely resisted the urge to slap his forehead.

"You're just… ugh, I don't care anymore, do whatever you want," he grumbled, shoving his hands in his pockets and turning his back to her again, heading back towards the direction he had come from. "Let's just get back to class – this kind of petty squabble was really unbecoming of a man of my big stature…"

He trudged on moodily with his partner tailing him, muttering something to himself all the while.

Tsubaki had thought she had perfected the art of mediating to flawlessness. She could say the exact words to make someone stop their misdeed in their tracks, she knew exactly how to handle delicate situations when people were just about to snap and she knew very well how to make tension dissipate.

She had just never thought that Black Star would demean himself enough to lower his "big self" to dealing with the problems of the "small people" and their squabbles.

And it flattered her endlessly he had done so just out of concern for her well-being.

The young woman smiled brightly, her fair cheeks dusting with color in her delight.

"Hey, Black Star?"

"What?" the addressed adolescent grunted disinterestedly.

"Thank you for coming to get me."

He did not reply to that and from her vantage point from slightly behind him Tsubaki could only see him take a hand out of his pocket and ruffle his cerulean spikes clumsily, mumbling something incoherent to himself as he strode on. Her smile widened and she caught up with him, beaming at his disgruntled expression.

For all the effort Black Star exerted in putting up a disinterested front, he was really skillful in the art of mediating when he wanted to be.

And that was usually when it really counted.

* * *

_A/N:_ And that is it. The first real thing I have written in _months_. It was intended as a drabble. You are witness to what it ended up being. I like the premise of my stories to be practically set in stone and that will probably be my downfall. And at any rate, I feel really incompetent when it comes to my writing lately, so some gentle constructiveness might do me some good, guys… T.T

I plan to make a lot of drabbly chapters to this one—each almost a stand alone project, most will probably not even make any sense chronologically—since this is my attempt to re-enter the world of Soul Eater fanfiction. xD Therefore opinions are _very strongly encouraged_ because I'm really, _really_ unsure about my ability to portray any of my favorite characters lately.


	2. Like Father, Like Son

_**Like Father, Like Son**_

* * *

It had been a really messy mission. Things had taken a bad turn at a really inopportune time and they had ended up having to clean up a bigger mess than they had initially thought.

Tsubaki heaved a great sigh, tightening her hold of the hand that was holding her towel in place securely wrapped around her naked form. Today had really been a long day and there was nothing more she wanted than a long, relaxing shower before turning in for the evening. She was practically itching to scrape off what felt like a whole layer of crusted dry blood and grime off her body.

Absent-minded after a tiresome job as she was, the girl didn't even bother to check whether the lights were on in the bathroom before she opened the door. After all, there had been no indication of any activity from inside, so she it hadn't even crossed her mind to make sure.

When she was greeted by the broad bare back of her roommate standing before their large mirror, she realized her mistake.

The Natsukasa heiress flushed bright red and turned around with her face hidden in her hands before she could see any more than she already had which was a flash too much in her books.

"I'm sorry!" she all but screeched in embarrassment. "I didn't mean to walk in on you in the bathroom! It's just—I wasn't paying attention and then—I'm so, so sorry! I didn't see anything, I promise!"

This was kind of one-sided. After all, wasn't it Black Star who always peeped on her when she was taking a bath in a hot spring or public bath? But no, Tsubaki wasn't that kind of person – she didn't get back at people in petty ways like that. And besides, there was something sacred in their own abode's bathroom so she'd never even thought herself capable of walking in on him!

But something wasn't adding up.

Like the fact he hadn't uttered a sound since she'd barged in on him, even though she'd apologized so profusely like that.

Usually he'd start laughing and boasting about his big self—her face flushed an even brighter shade of crimson at the shameful implications this new predicament put to this typical phrase of his—or he'd laugh and wave her off as though the encounter wasn't even worth talking about.

But now he wasn't saying _anything_, wasn't doing anything.

And, now that she allowed her conscious mind to wander into those thoughts, in the miniscule moment it had taken her to realize he was actually in, she'd also—in a detached part of her brain she _refused_ to acknowledge—had taken in _all_ of his appearance before the mirror.

And he had still been clad in his boxers, sullied with the blood from their skirmish a little while ago.

Tsubaki removed her face from her hands and turned to look at her meister.

He didn't seem to have noticed her come in even though she'd made such a spectacle of herself.

A sudden pain stabbed her chest the way it always did when he wasn't acting like himself.

Slowly, almost cautiously, she took a step, then two closer to him, suddenly uncertain what was going on.

"Black… Star…?" Her voice was soft, probing, but he had yet to acknowledge her presence in the washing room.

He was staring at his reflection in the mirror with eyes void of emotion, an unreadable expression on his features. His close scrutiny was so intense that there was something obsessive about his silence.

He was scaring her. He wasn't acting at all like the Black Star she knew and that unsettled her more than anything else in the world could.

After all, Black Star's boisterous behavior was about as set in stone as was the rising of the sun every single day. Any change in these stone-set rules shook the foundations of all her beliefs.

"Black Star, what's wrong?" she tried again, now less than a foot between them. She didn't even have half a mind to check whether her towel was still wrapped around her or not. "You haven't even taken your shower yet – what were you doing all this time?"

He didn't answer now either. His eyes only narrowed infinitesimally at his reflection in the mirror, never moving to look at her form now standing next to him in it.

"Black Star, what are you looking at?" The alarm in her voice was almost impossible to ignore now.

Tsubaki wasn't used to not getting replies from her meister. So his sudden 180 turn behavior-wise was almost throwing her in hysterics, especially when he refused to give any sign of coherency.

"Myself," he finally muttered curtly.

And for a tiny, miniscule moment Tsubaki thought gullibly that it was the usual Black Star and that this whole paranoid moment in the bathroom had only been a figment of her overactive imagination.

"And this face that _that guy_ said looks just like a merchant killer's." His upper lip trembled in ire and disgust while he forced himself to spit out aloud what was sullying his mouth. "Just like that scumbag my father's face."

During their mission, they had had to deal with a tribe that had done close business with the Star clan and especially the person that had known the most important members of it really well.

And that filthy excuse for a human being had said to her meister that he had grown up to look _just like his father_.

At the time, Black Star hadn't reacted at all to the words, hadn't even seemed to take them in much at all. But obviously they had impacted him greatly for him to be standing in front of the mirror, glaring at himself in resentment for almost an entire hour.

Tsubaki's brows drew together in disagreement.

"You're nothing like those parents of yours, Black Star, so there's no reason for you to brood over this kind of thing—"

"That's not what people think when they see this face of mine and that accursed brand on my shoulder." She would've felt better if he had screamed it at her instead of saying so in the most quiet and leveled tone she'd ever heard from him. It made another dagger spear through her heart.

"No one judges you by what you look like—"

"Of course they do, they always have… My entire life, being blamed by strangers for things I haven't done…" He was muttering to himself while glaring at his reflection in the mirror, his hands holding the edge of the sink so tightly a piece might have broken off any second if he continued.

"Stop that!" Tsubaki suddenly found herself shouting at her distressed partner without even realizing it. "The people who matter, who know _anything about you_, don't judge you from what your face looks like so you shouldn't be swayed what some dirty old man said! No one who knows the first thing about you could care less what kind of people the ones who brought you onto this world were or what they did, only that you are _here_, _now_, and the person that you grew up to be – mind, body and soul. They're drawn to you—even to that "face of a murderer" of yours—because they like you and want to know you better, because they admire you. If they knew how depressed you were just because of something some batty old man said, they'd feel insulted! This isn't like you, Black Star, and it's really unbecoming of the man who's supposed to be surpassing the gods!"

If she bothered to look at her reflection in the mirror right in front of her, she'd note how endlessly flustered she was, her face twisted with emotion. But as it was, her eyes were pinned to her partner, who was looking at her in total befuddlement.

"Tsubaki…" he muttered while she drew in a shaky breath, her lip quivering and her eyes welling up.

She chastised herself for being so incapable of handling her own emotions but she couldn't help it – some incompetent old fool showed up out of nowhere and started spewing such total nonsense that ends up offending one of the most wonderful, most brightly shining people she'd ever had the pleasure to meet, stripping him—if even for a short amount of time—of one of his most defining of qualities. And over something as superficial as physical semblance too!

So what if he _did_ look just like White Star? So what if he did have the face of a murderer? That didn't make him one. It didn't lessen any of his good deeds and didn't change the fact he followed a different path, a better one, a nobler one. It didn't make him anything like that monster in anything but physical appearance, so why should he have to suffer thinking otherwise?

She had voiced all of those musings of hers aloud, hands shaking by her sides the entire time as she did so.

"And besides, what's wrong with the way you look? If even there had been a time when a monster with a closely resembling face had existed, that time is now long gone. Now it is only the face of a young man with a very determined soul who will surpass all expectations and achieve heights that people didn't even know existed before that."

The young woman sidestepped him to stand between him and the mirror. Being of almost the same height—with him barely an inch or so taller than her—she completely blocked his view, forcing him to face her. His disconcerted gaze met hers and her soft accepting look melted all the ice had had built up around his heart after that fight.

She slowly raised a hand a gently stroked his bloodied cheek with a tiny, but positively moving smile.

"It's the face of the person I put everything on the line for. Please don't speak ill of him in front of me."

The young man smirked crookedly, closing his eyes and resting his forehead on that of his partner right in front of him while she was still cradling his cheek.

"Geez, Tsubaki, that was quite the sermon you pulled on me there."

She smiled and placed her other hand on the base of his neck, sighing slowly through her nose as she did so. She felt the tension ease out of her body just as fluidly as she felt it dissipate from his. An ease and shaky idyll settled over them.

"You weren't acting at all like yourself – you looked like you needed someone to shake you awake from a nightmare," she reasoned as smoothly, letting her eyes slide closed as she bathed in this feeling of tranquility.

She didn't want to have to see Black Star like this ever again.

He chuckled against her.

"Yeah, yeah, I know. Sorry – it was truly unbecoming for a man as great as myself to brood over such matters so much. But the road to surpassing God is paved with hardship that must be overcome to truly become the biggest man alive!" It was now her turn to laugh lightly at the return of the usual Black Star. "Thanks, Tsubaki," he smiled. "For walking in on me."

"Anytime," she replied jokingly in the same spirits of his last comment.

Even if he did look like a mercenary murderer, to Tsubaki, he was her one and only technician, her partner and the person she relied on the most.

So when he needed to be reminded that even if he did grow up to look like his father, he was nothing like him in the ways that actually counted, Tsubaki didn't mind him relying on her to be reminded.

"I really do think you ought to let go of me now and wait your turn for the shower. That is, unless you want to share. And I really should tell you now that from this point of view, that towel leaves very little to the imagination."

Reality crashed upon Tsubaki's moment of utter tranquility immediately upon her meister's words and she was out of the door faster than you could say "Soul Resonance!", blushing a shade to put a tomato to shame.

* * *

_A/N:_ Before you tell me it was out of character of Black Star to have this kind of moment, I'll direct you to chapter forty-nine of the manga. I do believe that everyone has their moments of doubts and uncertainty and I think that for Black Star, those are when he thinks and compares himself to his family. And since it has been a thought that has been gnawing on his mind, that's why he was so down about looking like his father.

Anyway, sorry for a really dark and heavy chapter, but it had to be done. Next one will have a stark contrast to this one, I promise. x3 So look forward to it and don't forget to review because feedback is the fuel for my writing spirit. x3


	3. Of the Sky and Sun

_**Of the Sky and Sun**_

* * *

It was a warm, clear night. A gentle breeze was blowing, calming the fried nerves and restless mind from an exhausting day. But the young woman sitting on the large rock, staring up at the high heavens above, did not find any solace in the soothing setting of the evening. She had something insistently gnawing on her mind, refusing to let her have any peace.

The wind blew strongly then and she heaved a sigh it carried away.

"Ah, there you were, Tsubaki!" a strong, familiar voice pulled her forcefully from her daydream, almost making her jump a foot in the air at being startled like that. "You have some nerve, making someone as big as myself look for you for such a long time!"

Black Star stood with his arms crossed over his chest, regarding her with a victorious look on his face at having uncovered her whereabouts.

Tsubaki forced a smile on her face as she returned her meister's look.

"Is that so? I'm really sorry for inconveniencing you like that." She then turned her face back towards the dark, starry sky above, getting lost in thought again. "I just thought I'd have a bit of fresh air, that's all," she allowed herself to say before her mind drifted back to the topic that had been on her mind for a while, ever since a night very reminiscent of this one they were sharing right then.

Black Star stared at the back of the head of his partner, his gaze now leveled, calculating. Having decided that something was off about her tonight, he sat down next to her on the big stone, looking up at the sky as well.

He didn't say anything for a while, just standing there next to her, basking in the calm of their surroundings.

"So? What's bothering you that makes you feel the need for some fresh air out of your own home?" His voice was as smooth and calm as the setting around them, mixing masterfully with the sounds of the night.

The corners of Tsubaki's lips twitched slightly upwards in the beginning of a smile. It was just like Black Star to know something was wrong without her even needing to say a word about it. He had probably picked up on it since yesterday, when she'd taken him to the other soul inside her, when it had begun bothering her first. But he hadn't said anything for a while, let her sort it out on her own.

But it didn't seem to her ability to figure it out alone, so she told him what was gnawing on her mind lately.

It was maybe silly and a little childish of her—and she was supposed to be the grown-up in this partnership—but it did bother her endlessly…

"If Black Star is the dark sky with all the stars and moon, all of it… then what am I?"

Her voice was small and slight, her mind lost in thought. Her technician looked at her with an indiscernible look in his eye for a minute or two after she had spoken—his scrutiny made her feel self-conscious about the embarrassing question she had just asked him, having her wish in that very moment she had kept her mouth shut—and then he shifted his gaze to the skies above them again, a sweet crooked smile on his lips.

"It's kind of obvious, isn't it?"

Tsubaki blinked several times at his words that successfully pulled her brooding for the last couple of days to a complete halt. He had already figured out something she hadn't been able to for days?

"It is?"

It didn't even cross her mind that he might have come up with something stupid and face-fault worthy, the way he usually would when he considered matters half-heartedly.

Because he never considered anything that bothered her half-heartedly.

"If I am the night sky, then Tsubaki is definitely the sun."

His little bit of enlightenment did nothing to make Tsubaki feel any better. Because what he said made no sense to her whatsoever.

Seeing her puzzled expression, the young man decided to elaborate.

"Even though the night sky is alluring with its mysteriousness, the sun always comes up when a new day begins. It lights up everything and brings actual colour to the sky. Although many people love looking up at the starry skies, no one can live a fulfilling life if not for the light of the sun during the day. And, besides, the sun is the closest thing to the sky – just like me and Tsubaki! So Tsubaki is definitely the warm, bright sun that nurtures everyone!"

His child-like comparisons and his total incompetence in astronomy did nothing to dampen the brilliance of the smile she gave him then. Because, child-like and totally incompetent though his explanation was, it was also infinitely sweet and she could forget numbers and distances in order to believe what he had said.

Because Tsubaki enjoyed thinking that she was the sun that cast away the shadows in his sky and brought forth the true, wondrous colours of his character.

* * *

_A/N:_ Wow, that's the most drabble-y thing I have ever written in my entire life – I am so proud of myself. xD I hope you liked it, even though it was infinitely shorter than all my other works, but fear not – I already have another chapter in the works, so as long as I know you haven't given up on me, I'm resuming work on this story! x3 Till next time, folks, hope you enjoyed and don't forget to tell me what you think! x3


	4. Arcade God

_**Arcade God**_

* * *

"_Soul and I have some business to take care of downtown, so we can meet in an hour in front of the hotel we're staying at. I'm sure the city will be loads of fun, so come join us too, if you want!_"

It had sounded like a great notion at the time when Maka had suggested it, but now that Black Star and Tsubaki had so much time to spare before their friends showed up, things weren't looking as bright.

After all, there were only so many things you could do loitering around at a hotel parking lot.

"What are those two thinking, making someone as big as me wait for them for such a long time?!" Black Star exclaimed loudly from his vantage point on top of an expensive-looking car.

Tsubaki was sweating bullets while she was trying to cajole her willful partner to get off the polished car before the bodyguards on watch in front of the hotel, who were eyeing the young man very suspiciously, could decide to take some action against him.

Only when she succeeded in bringing down the overly energetic teen from the car, did she allow herself to remind him,

"It's not like they _made_ us wait for them. We chose to do so on our own, didn't we?"

"Don't bother with the details, Tsubaki!" the blue-haired assassin commanded in a booming voice and his partner wondered if the bodyguards wouldn't use the "disruption of the order" trump card on them some time soon to chase them off. "The bottom line is that they are making this great me dilly-dally while waiting for small people to finish with their small duties instead of spending that time in quality training to bring me closer to surpassing the gods!"

The raven-haired chain scythe sighed heavily. If only she got a quarter for every time she heard this same line of thought…

"Yes, yes, sure," she agreed good-naturedly, leaning against the stone wall that separated the hotel's parking lot from the rest of the current region.

Black Star paced back and forth for a while, complaining loudly about something and, when he decided that he couldn't just waste his time waiting around, declared he was going off to explore the surroundings.

He hadn't gone even twenty meters before he took a turn and disappeared inside some kind of building. Alarms immediately went off in Tsubaki's head and she wondered whether he wasn't causing a ruckus and inconveniencing people again. Maybe she shouldn't have agreed so readily to let him go off on his own…

The subject of her concerns came back running to her not even a minute or so later after she'd begun really wondering what he'd been up to, a suspicious huge grin on his face.

"Tsubaki! You wouldn't believe what kind of place I found! You have to come see – we can definitely kill some time there while showing some small folk how things are done!" he exulted, grabbing his partner by the hand and dragging her off in the direction he'd sprung in not a minute or so ago. The young woman hadn't even had the time to offer a reply to his offer.

She felt an onslaught of dread at the thought of what _exactly_ could it have been that had made Black Star go into such an overdrive after being so moody over being made to wait for a long time.

* * *

The sight of people enjoying themselves immensely while playing various games on sophisticated-looking machines was definitely not among the things she'd anticipated seeing.

Frankly, it was a pleasant surprise. The games they had there seemed relatively harmless, so she couldn't see anything wrong with them spending an hour or so in the arcade.

"This place is really awesome, isn't it? We don't have this kind of thing back home in Death City!" Black Star jubilated, both hands on his hips while he regarded the large fun-having center with appreciative eyes. "This is definitely a place worthy of someone with an existence as humongous as mine!"

Tsubaki allowed herself a small smile. Anything that made her partner as child-like happy couldn't be that bad an idea.

"Yeah! It definitely does seem like a fun place to be," she agreed, taking a closer look around. "What should we try out first?"

She had said the magic word that unlocked the flood-gates.

From there on, they probably played every game there was in the premise, with her partner acing each and everyone of them, as though to prove with one more aspect that he was definitely 'the biggest man there is'.

Tsubaki allowed him that in good humor, accepting the second place right after him without complaint.

What she failed to note with all the fun they were having was that her partner's joyous and over-enthusiastic screams and yells seemed to agitate a large group of people around the only machine they hadn't tried out. They eyed the two of them like snakes ready to strike and, when she noticed eventually, Tsubaki felt the need to escape their vicinity as quickly as possible.

"It's alright, Tsubaki, don't lose heart! It's only natural that you wouldn't be able to defeat me in any of these games – after all, I am what a God is, so naturally I excel at each and every one of them. Keep doing your best at it because that is the best course of action you can take if you want to become even half as great as I am!" the boy proclaimed again, crossing his hands behind his head while she wordlessly steered him towards the exit.

"Of course, it's only understandable that Black Star would be the best in all those games!" She laughed stiffly and wondered if he noticed, even though he didn't say anything about it. "But it's about time to go meet with Soul-kun and Maka-chan, so shouldn't we get going?"

She ushered him almost urgently towards the exit, before he could get himself into any trouble with those mean-looking people who were still glaring weirdly at them while they passed them by.

"Hey, shorty!" Tsubaki froze mid-stride when she heard a voice from the group shouting out towards them. "Hey, look at people when they talk to you, punky-looking kid with weird hair-do."

Large droplets of cold sweat broke out over the raven-haired young woman's forehead as her partner's expression turned to stone and he turned his head slowly to look at the people who had addressed him over his shoulder.

"What? You talking to me, moron?" he ground out and the guy who had obviously spoken adopted an enraged expression at his intelligence being insulted.

That's when Tsubaki knew that all hell was about to break loose and now that those people had called him short and a "punky-looking _kid_", there was no turning back…

"Yeah, you – the loud one who acts like he owns the place." This time it was another of the verbal assailant's cronies, stepping up to speak. "Wanna play a game with us? We promise it's going to be fun."

From the fiendish expression on his face, Tsubaki knew it would be anything but _fun_.

"I don't know what kind of merit you get by calling this big me short and a kid, both of which are equal to small, unless you just want to make yourselves stand out more but I don't see any point in playing any kind of game with such sad excuses for people like you guys."

While the chain scythe girl was really glad he didn't let himself get easily baited into whatever they were trying to pull, she really thought Black Star could've chosen his words in a wiser way, so as not to agitate the already short-tempered guys any further.

"Is it really that or do you just not want to look bad in front of your girlfriend when you lose spectacularly to us?" another guy from the group piped up, snickering to himself afterwards.

Tsubaki blushed a shade of bright red, hearing quite selectively what the stranger had said.

"W-w-we aren't really like that—" she tried to explain but no one seemed to pay much heed to her.

Black Star's brows narrowed dangerously over his eyes.

"Are you calling me a coward?" he grinded out, making the bullies grin in satisfaction. They had him now.

"It's what you are, isn't it?"

"Perfect—bring it on!" the azure-haired boy yelled, rolling up his already short sleeves. "There isn't a kiddy game in existence that can be too difficult for the great Black Star to conquer!"

The girl grabbed her partner by his shirt before he could get completely immersed in this stupid showdown with some mean-spirited bullies. She must have had a really pleading look in her eyes because he smiled at her and said through a grin,

"You just stand back and watch me annihilate those guys, Tsubaki! I have found yet another stage to show off my enormous existence!"

She clenched her jaw and let go of him, her worry over what kind of prank they were planning to pull on him having not diminished even slightly but she knew that trying to cajole him out of this was out of the question. They had already pushed his buttons.

Besides, this new "dancing stage" of his, seemed to have truly intrigued him.

* * *

The plan had been to bait the shrimp into a game he obviously had never seen before and shut him up by totally defeating him at it.

They had even gone as far as choosing a really difficult song and playing it on "Difficult", the second to last difficulty level, and they had left him without the settings for fewer arrows.

It should've been an instant win for them, who loved playing that song on the Dance Dance Revolution machine in this arcade and almost knew the moves by heart.

And yet the little punk had somehow, with some flailing and more obnoxious yelling and lots of quick changes in direction of the foot-work, managed to pull through the first song.

They were at a loss for words. This was unheard of, unspeakable.

Was this guy even human?

"Hey, this thing is actually really fun! I think I'm getting the hang of it, Tsubaki!" he called back loudly through the music towards his girl who was behind them, watching how things played out while wringing her hands worriedly.

It had taken only a few seconds for Tsubaki to realize that even though the song and the controls were the same for both players, Black Star's opponent seemed to have a lot less direction arrows to follow.

She knew they had had a dirty trick up their sleeve. They had definitely wanted to pick on her partner by humiliating him in a completely unknown game.

Too bad they didn't know who they were dealing with, as something of this speed—however alien of a thing it was—was nothing to Black Star who underwent rigorous training religiously every day.

Not only that, but by the end of the first game, he had mastered one of the most difficult games without the "Little" option that their guy had, and he had even minimized all of his unnecessary movements, hitting all arrows infallibly at "Perfect".

The bunch gathered together after the first game, deciding to change tack. They had their best played go and talk to the little punk and offer him a deal.

"If you win this game that we'll play under our terms, we'll agree that you're definitely the best player there is and we promise that we'll spread word about you amongst our lot. We'll admit that you're definitely way better than us and we'll leave you and your girlfriend be."

Black Star grinned toothily at that proposition and all parties involved in the silly match ignored Tsubaki who tried to explain from behind them that she and her partner didn't share _that_ kind of relationship.

"You've finally come to realize it, huh?" he said smoothly, a complacent grin sliding in place on his face. His smug expression pissed off his opponent for the game till no end.

"But if you lose, you'll have to admit that you're inferior to us and you won't show your face in front of us ever again. Sound good?"

The over-confident youngster grinned malignantly at his provoker.

"That's fine with me. I don't care about the losing conditions to this deal. Since I'm going to smash your head in anyway."

The two guys glared evilly at one another for a bit before they stepped up on the gaming pads.

The blue-haired boy cracked his fingers, a huge grin plastered securely on his face.

"Black Star on stage!" he exclaimed, bouncing up and down on the pad.

"Just a second – you agreed you'd play by our terms, right?" Black Star's antagonist said, making the young assassin make room for him to do some weird steps before the game had even begun.

When the guy was satisfied, he went and did some options on his own pad as well, grinning suspiciously all the while, making Tsubaki even more restless and Black Star more annoyed with him taking so long with preparations.

"Are we doing this?" the Shibusen student drawled irritably, impatient to show off his superiority to these guys already.

His answer was the machine's jolly call, "Are you ready?" while the "Here we go!" writing disappeared.

It was time to see who was better…

* * *

Five minutes later, a very triumphant and slightly out of breath Black Star was laughing raucously in the incredulous faces of his opponents, who had yet to completely realize how utterly they had been defeated.

To think he could've cleared the two 300-beat songs at a double speed without any options for fewer arrows… A monster. A monster had definitely come into that arcade that night…

"I told you that I am what a God is!" the annoying squirt exulted obnoxiously, but they couldn't say anything against him, since a deal was a deal. "This is my era! There isn't a game in existence that can be too difficult for someone as big as me to figure out!" He laughed loudly with his hands on his hips, head thrown back and making a complete spectacle of himself.

They couldn't believe they had lost to such a clown so they decided to take their leave then, with their tails between their legs.

Black Star regarded their retreating backs with a huge grin. He let out a sigh of content, drawing a hand across his forehead, drying his sweaty bangs. A cold drink hovered in his line of sight then and he took the proffered beverage from his partner's hand, awarding her with one of his largest of grins.

"You knew they were trying to make a fool out of you and that they had something planned, didn't you?" she asked, taking a sip of her own light drink she'd bought from the bar.

"Yeah, I did," he managed to say before downing the entire half liter bottle in several large gulps.

"Why did you agree to play them then? Why'd you walk into their trap?"

"I wanted to see what kind of face they'd make when I beat them at their own game," he said, almost laughing, as he aimed and threw the now empty bottle, having it land perfectly in the waste basket by the exit. "They tried to make themselves stand out more than me, so I couldn't let it slide."

Tsubaki smiled to herself and took another tentative sip of her beverage. This was definitely just like Black Star.

"Besides, I found out a really fun game thanks to them! Now I know all the options so we can make for an exciting match between us on this dancing emulator."

The girl blinked a couple of times at her meister, slightly befuddled. So he'd taken on a bunch of mean guys who badmouthed him and demeaned him, just so he could get to learn the specifics of a game so they could explore it better together? Something so pointless was such a trademark of his…

She smiled to herself and downed her drink as well, throwing it with the same precision as him in the trash can.

"Alright then! Let's play together!" she called out, clenching a fist before herself. Seeing her fighting spirit, Black Star's own blazed back into tangibility as well.

"Right!"

"This time, I am definitely going to be the winner!" the girl threatened, getting up on the pad.

Her technician's booming laugh echoed over the loud music from the huge speakers.

"I'll take you up on that challenge, Tsubaki!" He hit his palm with his other hand, clenched in a fist. "I know! Whoever loses this one will do the dishes for the next two weeks when we get home and won't complain!"

"You're the only one who ever complains about chores and runs away from doing them, Black Star," Tsubaki reminded him jokingly while he chose a song.

He laughed some more and then the game was on.

* * *

Maka and Soul entered the arcade hurriedly an hour and a half or so later, looking around frantically for their friends.

Their business downtown had taken them more time than they had anticipated and, knowing their loud buddy rather well, had been worried about what kind of apocalypse may have befallen the city for making him wait more than they had promised to take.

The two had arrived in the promised meeting place only to find their friends nowhere in sight. They waited around for a bit then thought to ask the bodyguards in front of the hotel whether they had seen an incredibly annoying kid with spiky hair and a timid young woman with him somewhere.

And the Shibusen student pair had been directed to the arcade where a huge group of onlookers had gathered around a place where loud music was coming from.

Soul and Maka shared a puzzled look between them as they advanced, wondering what the ruckus was about and hoping to ask someone from the crowd whether they haven't seen their friends.

Instead, they found the subjects of their search on the game, in the center of attention, out of breath and drenched in sweat, moving almost faster than the eye could grasp to some insanely quick rhythm that was blaring from the huge speakers.

The crowd of people had gathered to see the most amazing pair of players bring the game to whole new heights with their incredible reflexes and quick movements. It was truly a marvel to behold, watching their endless showdowns.

At the end of the day, Tsubaki was stuck with doing dishes, laundry, cooking and cleaning all by herself for a whole month because she'd lost more times than could be counted, and only managed very few to bring their showdowns to a draw.

But she didn't mind. After all, it was only natural that she'd take her place right behind him, at his shadow, his prop to success, as he was truly going to one day surpass the deities if he said he would because he always kept all his promises.

Besides, doing chores for a month was definitely worth getting him to work up a good sweat with her.

* * *

_A/N:_ This came to me when me and my friends were at the arcade the other day. So, even if it's a bit pointless, I just had to write it up. I hope it wasn't a disappointment, because I really enjoyed writing it for some reason, even though the main thought of it is a bit lost to me. Then again, what's the point of games in the first place if not just having fun because it _is_ fun? xDD And I just had to write something that amplified Black Star's greatness some.


	5. Teaming Up

_**Teaming Up**_

* * *

She had heard that there was a school in Death City that taught weapons and technicians how to better use their powers and helped them further hone their talents.

She had decided that it was just the place for her. It would be inevitable, meeting her brother gone astray, if she became a student in the school.

She had talked to the headmaster—a very eccentric man going by the alias "Death God"—and he had understood her circumstances.

All she had left to do was find herself a good technician with whom she'd be able to grow skill-wise.

So that she'd be able to defeat her brother who had thoughtlessly stepped off the right path…

That's when she'd heard that weird-haired boy shout atop one of the spikes of Shibusen in a booming voice about how awesome he was and how he'd overcome God.

She should've thought that someone as confident was bound to have some truth to his words and that teaming up with him would be infinitely beneficial to her quest.

Instead, she thought how great it must be to believe in your own strengths and good points so well as to believe you can even overthrow the deities.

She had been genuinely impressed with this no more than fourteen years old boy who knew well what he wanted and seemed to know the way to achieve his dreams.

"My name is Tsubaki. I'm a weapon."

"I'm Black Star! A technician."

That is how they met.

She was the first to notice his "great talent", as he'd put it.

He was the first person she had ever admired as much.

That is how their paths began to intertwine.

* * *

There were so many people gathered together in so many rooms – weapons and technicians alike.

How was she supposed to figure out who was going to be the technician her soul's wavelength would best respond to?

"Some attention, please!" an instructor in a muscle shirt and wearing a headband on his head said, stepping up in front of all the gathered future students. "We're going to test your soul wavelengths so line up and listen to what you're going to be told to do."

That is how it was decided that they were a perfect match.

* * *

"Haa?"

"Ah!"

They bumped into each other when they were called to the faculty office after the soul wavelength test.

"You?" the boy exclaimed, slightly puzzled at first. His slackened expression quickly mended itself though, fixing itself into one of smugness incarnate. "This is most opportune! To think that I'd be teamed up with the person who best understands this great talent of mine upon meeting me! You are a very lucky girl to have this awesome man who is going to surpass God as your partner, Tsubaki!"

She smiled good-naturedly and clasped her hands behind her back, nodding once before giving her energetic "Yes!" in reply.

They were a team but she didn't realize at the time that the term never quite hit home with her.

She had never teamed up with anyone before in her life, so she didn't quite understand the notion.

* * *

They had been instructed that they were to share an apartment together in Death City so as to strengthen their weapon-technician bond. Knowing the other was the first step to better resonance, so Tsubaki didn't dare voice her opinion that sharing an abode with a younger boy could prove to be troublesome for her.

She had no right to complain because she was undergoing all these things because she had to stop her brother from his path of destruction.

That is how they came to live together as a team.

* * *

They were taking a stroll around the town after having bought the groceries for dinner when they came across them.

Camellias.

"Whoa, that's some insistent bunch of flowers – there's so many of them!" Black Star exclaimed, honestly taken aback by the sheer number of them.

Tsubaki smiled forlornly while she reached out to pick one of them.

"These are camellias. The camellia flower is a flower with no scent. While you don't even pay attention, it blossoms."

She stared at the flower in her hand with eyes haunted by demons of a past he would probably never know about. Then she let the picked camellia fall from her grasp and she watched it with saddened eyes as it tumbled down noiselessly.

"It also withers in a miserable way and leaves an unpleasant feeling. _That's_ the camellia… the scentless flower."

Black Star looked at his new partner in nonplus at her sudden drop in spirits. He had never before seen her look so lost before.

He smirked and laughed loudly, drawing her attention back to present time and—most importantly—himself.

"You are too naïve, Tsubaki!" he exulted vociferously, quickly bending down to pick up the discarded flower under his newly appointed weapon's baffled gaze. "It seems that your inferior senses are too dull to pick up on it! But that's alright, since I—this great me—know it really well!"

"Sorry?" Tsubaki barely managed to utter, blinking profusely at having completely lost track of the conversation.

"I don't think that is so. Even the camellia…"

He inhaled deeply the inexistent odour of the camellia she had let fall down.

"It does have one. And it is a really nice scent."

That is how he began to teach her that even the camellias had a scent.

That is how what had begun as only her self-righteous mission to put a stop to her brother's rampage had turned into an adventure she looked forward to experiencing. Together, with this odd, admirable and loud boy.

She looked forward to no longer doing everything alone because Tsubaki believed that if it was with Black Star he would definitely show her what it meant to be able to rely on someone for strength when you couldn't stand on your own.

That is how Tsubaki decided she would have a star on her chest of her battle uniform.

And that is how they had truly become a team.

Because teaming up did not mean just having resonating soul wavelengths and living in the same apartment.

Teaming up truly begins only once there is trust and reliance upon the other.

* * *

_A/N:_ This came to me while I was watching the tenth and eleventh episodes of Soul Eater again today. And I knew I just had to write it. And to think that I am so proud of the way it came out…!! Please tell me you thought it was worthwhile as well! x333


	6. Unannounced Visits are Bad

_**Unannounced Visits are Bad**_

* * *

This was it.

The last day, the end of the wait.

He had endured this kind of stagnation for six days but this one—the last one—seemed much longer and unendurable than all the others combined.

Black Star had never been the sharpest tool in the shed but he was starting to contemplate very intricate and difficult matters like whether it wasn't fully possible for time to _slow down_ to an almost agonizing pace when one's eagerly awaiting something.

This Death Scythe meeting once a year was killing him already and he didn't even have anything to do with it directly!

Of course, what was bothering him was the absence of his significant other.

Tsubaki had taken off six days prior, leaving him with a mountain of instructions how to take care of himself in her absence—probably naively wary of him setting their apartment on fire when trying to cook or something silly like that—and the promise that she'd only be gone a week. He had laughed, waved it off and wished her a good trip with the promise that the abode would be still standing when she came back a mere week afterwards.

This aforementioned 'mere week' turned into an absolute _nightmare_ by the fourth day.

To think that there was any slower that time could roll by…

The young man heaved a huge sigh and threw himself on the sofa, deciding that pacing around in his agitated state did nothing to help him take the edge off of his annoyance with all matters earthly, so he opted for something more productive.

Like staring vacuously at the television set until he fell asleep out of boredom. That sounded like a really neat way to while away time—agonizing just as much as anything else, but definitely better than eventually wearing the carpet thin with his way-too-fast for human standards pacing.

The previous few days he had trained until he dropped but he didn't seem to find the attention span to indulge in any of that anymore today.

It definitely didn't help that he and Tsubaki had finally come out of the closet about their feelings about each other and had started officially going out for a few months already.

To have her go off on her own somewhere where someone as great as the man who had surpassed the gods couldn't follow her was _not_ his favourite pastime in such an important moment in their lives. Especially since he didn't feel like letting her go anywhere farther than the grocery store, and even that he had only allowed because he couldn't afford to let the two of them starve.

It was a well-known fact that Black Star was a possessive fellow. Of the things he held dear doubly so. Thus it was no surprise he was handling the matter quite unwell.

Not being surprised with the predicament did _not_, however, make time pass any faster.

The azure-haired man growled under his breath, massaging the bridge of his nose rather roughly, willing his irritation away. It was really a bit unbecoming for someone with an existence as humongous as his to be _this_ bothered by something so trivial as his girlfriend's absence. It wasn't like she wouldn't be back by tomorrow, so he didn't need to make that big of a deal of it.

She could just as well be there when he cracked his eyes open tomorrow.

But she could not as well. She could take a later flight across Oceania… and arrive by the afternoon… Or even at dusk… If they held her up, she might even arrive really late at night and _then_ he would really snap.

He glared at the inane television program he had switched the television on to, as if it was its fault that he was so agitated with the world in general.

"What the hell am I doing…" he muttered not even in a whisper to himself, eyes devoid of emotion pinning to the ceiling.

He was so engulfed in his own world that he didn't even hear the door click lightly open and even more noiselessly close.

He was being a really pathetic sight and it was painful to think about. It was also really pitiful that it unsettled him this much to be separated from his girlfriend.

True, they had been together for so many years… And she'd been by his side almost twenty-four seven for more than four years. So his separation anxiety was probably understandable.

In hindsight, if he had given any deliberation to the fact he had been so out of it that he'd allowed someone to sneak up on him, regardless of how close and dear of a person to him it was, he probably would've flipped.

As it stood, he was engulfed in memories about the good times and bad—all his precious life experiences that had defined his character—he had shared with Tsubaki that he almost jumped when a pair of hands gently encircled his neck from over the sofa's back, and a soft profile pressed lightly to his own.

Black Star grinned from ear to ear, still securely seated on the sofa.

"Well, well, well, what would you know?… I didn't expect to see _you_ today…"

He felt a dainty—and, he was sure, absolutely heart-warming—smile curve the lips of the newly arrived guest.

* * *

"I still think we should've called before dropping by uninvited…" Kid muttered disgruntled, adjusting the tie of his suit. It had to be perfectly centered, flawlessly positioned, unless he wanted to be an abomination of a shinigami. Which he definitely did not.

Liz snorted in a very unladylike way while Patty laughed hysterically at the face their technician was making. The younger girl derived quite an unsettling amount of joy out of the shinigami scion's misery…

"Like he would've found the phone in that chaos that was his apartment anyway. And what would that have accomplished in the first place, huh? It's not like _Black Star_, of all people, would prepare anything especially for us just because we said we were visiting," the elder Thompson girl explained reasonably.

"Making a visit without saying so beforehand is rude and uncivilized…" Kid muttered in an even smaller voice, refusing to face Liz. The latter felt a vein pop into visibility on her forehead in her rightful ire.

"Who was the one worried that the guy might be lonely without Tsubaki around? Definitely not me or Patty—"

"Not us!" Patty interjected in a sing-song voice, proceeding to laugh some more afterwards at the absolutely sour expression Kid was making.

"—So just shut up and let's go drag his lazy ass out before he becomes one with the furniture. For all we know, mushrooms might really actually start growing out of his head at this rate…" The taller sister made a face at the mental imagery that statement of hers conjured. She definitely wouldn't want to be the one to save Black Star from a horrid death if he started growing mushrooms on his head… Even friendship had its limits.

They knocked on the wooden door of the apartment but received no reply for a while. They knocked again and still got no answer.

"See, maybe he's out! Coming all this way to an empty apartment could've been avoided altogether if only we _had called_—"

"Yeah, right, as if that idiot would go anywhere in that sad state of mind he was in last time we swung by this place," Liz disagreed, knocking for the third time.

"Let's take the door down and make sure he's not trying to ignore us!" Patty exclaimed, no doubt getting ready to do just that.

Kid's eyes widened and he realized only a second too late that she was serious about it to stop her properly from doing something absolutely indecent to someone else's abode in their absence.

"Idiot, don't cause a ruckus—"

But as Patty swung into Kid who was blocking her path and he was respectively flung against the door, it was really pliant in giving him access to the premise beyond.

"Hey, it's unlocked!" Patty exulted, only to be shushed by her sister. The overactive girl gave her sister a puzzled look.

"We don't know if he's home so what we're doing might be considered trespassing, Patty!" Liz explained in a hushed whisper to her dimwitted sibling who only laughed some more in a bit too inappropriate of a volume.

"We're going back to our old ways, aren't we, nee-chan?" the girl giggled manically, making her sister adopt a pale look.

"Don't say it so happily, you…"

"I'm really glad you're enjoying your chat, ladies, but would you please move a bit so I can help myself up?" Kid drew their attention back to himself with his disinterested drawl.

Both girls' eyes widened as they looked down at him, fallen down on Black Star's floor… with a girl's bra on top of his head.

"Hey, Kid… how the hell did you end up with a… a…" A terrible scenario was already forming in Liz's mind, thanks to the hours upon hours she spent of watching soap operas on the TV.

"Kid's wearing a bra on his head!" Patty exclaimed, pointing at the poor boy who only then decided to see what it was indeed that he had on his head.

"Huh. Interesting," he muttered to himself, looking behind himself—deeper into the apartment—to find a trail of clothing both men's and women's, leading to the bedroom. "That's quite interesting a development…"

"That bastard!" Liz hissed malignantly, clenching her fist tightly. "What is he doing while Tsubaki's away on business?! That moron! Bastard! Monster!"

"Bastard, bastard! Infidel!" Patty laughed raucously, obviously very amused by the thought that was mortifying her sister.

"We have to investigate! Figure out who the tramp is and then crush her! And then, crush _him_, for being such a bastard!" Liz decided, creeping forward, following the trail of clothes.

"Bust him, bust him while at it!" Patty supplemented joyfully, following her sister inside the apartment.

Kid deadpanned while he looked at his twin Demon guns eavesdrop by the door of Black Star and Tsubaki's bedroom.

"You're not seriously going to do that, are you?"

"That bastard, he is really going seriously at it with some bimbo!" Liz hissed again, careful not to give herself away and give the bitch a chance to elude them until she could get a firm hold of her. Tsubaki was a friend of the Thompson sisters, after all. "Just listen to that, Kid! It's an outrage!"

Before he could protest any further, the young shinigami was shoved ear-first against the door and kept there by the firm hold that only a woman who had spent a really long time living on the streets could have.

The pleasured moans and groans and the creaking of a bed put under much pressure of energetic activities were unmistakable. Flushing bright red, Shinigami-sama's son yanked his head away from the door, an incredulous look with which he regarded his weapons on his face as the two got ready to storm the couple beyond the door.

"Liz, Patty, we really shouldn't interfere with other people's relationships – this has gone way out of control and we really should take our leave while we still can—" He had a really bad feeling about how all this would end.

But it was too late for reasoning as Liz slammed the door open, her face twisted in a malicious snarl of self-righteous fury. She was a warrior for love and understanding! She would not stand for one of their closest friends being cheated on by that loudmouthed scumbag!

"Alright, Black Star! You've been caught in the act! We're definitely not going to forgive you for trampling over Tsubaki's feelings!"

"Caught with your pants down, caught with your pants down," Patty laughed to the side.

To Liz's utter indignation, it seemed that only the girl beneath Black Star had enough decency to act abashed and hide behind his much wider back that was facing the door.

The man in question only glared uninterestedly at the duo by his bedroom door, perplexed by _what the hell was that insane woman even saying_ and annoyed that he'd been interrupted while in his element.

The girl beneath him shifted uncomfortably, probably hoping that the earth would open and swallow her whole. Her embarrassment at the situation that had presented itself only made him further displeased with his unwanted guests.

"What the fuck kind of nonsense are you spouting, you moronic woman? And what the hell are you still doing in my bedroom?!" His head narrowed and he didn't even turn to look at his intruders in full before the temperature in the premise dropped a few degrees with the rise of his ire. "Can't you see I'm _busy_ here?"

Liz flinched back a bit at his tone and the malicious aura that he emanated, but her temper flared again when the little bitch beneath him placed what she believed was a placating hand on his arm, which even more infuriatingly seemed to calm him down a notch.

"I am definitely going to want to see what _Tsubaki_ will think about you being _busy_, you unfaithful mongrel!" she accused, pointing her finger theatrically at the man only whose back—_thankfully_—she could see.

At that declaration, all malignant feelings from the defendant seemed to evaporate, chased away by his complete nonplus.

"…Huh? Wha—?" It was all he could stitch together in a sentence before Kid grabbed both of his partners and threw one over each of his shoulders, ignoring their protests.

"I'm really sorry for this, Black Star. Walking in on you on your private time with your girl companion had definitely not been our intent. We're terribly sorry and we'll leave you to your devices now."

"The hell we are sorry!" Liz thrashed but none of her efforts seemed to amount to anything against Kid's steely grip. So she settled for yelling at the infidel bastard and shaking her fist threateningly at him until he was no longer in sight.

The pair on the bed heard the door click closed and Liz's shrieks and Patty's laughter echo away until they were no longer in the vicinity. The two only blinked for a while even after the trio was gone.

Tsubaki then hoisted herself up by her elbow, looking confusedly in the now empty space they had left, still quite unsure what had transpired.

"What was that all about?" she mumbled, voice rough and out of breath.

"I dunno, but I _think_ they got the wrong idea." At the confused look his partner was giving him, he elaborated with a smirk, "I think they thought I was cheating on you."

Tsubaki scowled at that, a worried crease forming on her head.

"Should I go after them and clear up this misunderstanding?"

She was pushed back down and all coherent thought fled her already garbled mind when her lover resumed his attentions at her.

"Oh, you're not going anywhere for a while." The trail of small kisses he left up the column of her neck felt like wildfire as he continued upwards. "I'm far from done here with you."

With one last conscious observation, Tsubaki decided that she really didn't mind _that _much Kid and the Thompson sisters thinking ill of her significant other for a day.

After all, she had really missed him while she'd been away too, and she wouldn't want to miss this for the world.

* * *

_A/N:_ I had really a lot of fun writing this. And I firstly intended for Soul and Maka to walk in on Tsubaki and Black Star, but then remembered that Soul would probably become a Death Scythe before Tsubaki does, thus he'd be attending the same meeting, and won't be as able to give his peers the slip like Tsubaki did here, so, yeah, Kid and the Thompson sisters it was. xD Oh, and, honestly, I felt like I emphasized their silliness a bit too much, thus making the Death team a bit too OOC, but it works for the fic and for my jab at humor, so it works for me too. xD

As always, thoughts and opinions are much appreciated. :)


	7. In Memoriam

_**In Memoriam**_

* * *

Tsubaki sighed heavily. She was in the kitchen—one of her favourite places in the apartment—engaged in preparing a night snack for her partner—his favourite. Under normal circumstances, she would've felt nothing short of ecstatic to share a moment or two alone together with her technician, soothed by the calm of the night outside and the gentle breeze entering through the open window, ruffling the drawn curtains.

But as it was, the Chain Scythe girl felt like there was a huge weight on her chest, oppressing her, asphyxiating her, stifling even her usual cheer.

It was a heavy brunt to bear, and a severely unpleasant one; it disparaged all her activities, made them all seem for naught and useless.

Because how could anything she did be found as anything less than useless and futile when she was helpless in aiding the person she held most dear in his grave predicament?

Helplessness was not a feeling Tsubaki handled well. She might not be regarded as one of the most active people about, but she most certainly hated not being able to do anything at all. Much more so when she was helpless to ease any of her meister's mental turmoil.

Ever since the fight with the samurai Mifune, Black Star had started acting very unusually for himself. His voice lacked its booming quality, he didn't laugh nearly as often and his grin never quite reached his eyes. He was always either caught up in training or in some other activity that he did with staggering concentration that she'd rarely ever witnessed before from him for daily basis activities.

He was currently in the living room—which was adjacent to the kitchen—seated on the sofa with his legs crossed beneath him, eyes pinned and expression similar to that of a zombie while he played with a small portable game emulator. His favourite show was on TV—one he ordinarily laughed raucously at, declaring to her every now and then how big these comedians were and what rank they had after "the man who surpassed God"—(now that she considered it, she didn't recall him referring to himself that way in quite a while, and _this_ really made a sinking sense of dread settle in her stomach with unease)—and he wasn't even taking a glance up from his game.

Fed up with her complete lack of action—and suffocated even more by the impregnated silence between them while she'd been in the living room—Tsubaki had gone to make him a snack, in an effort to do _something_, anything at all.

The problem was that she understood very well what was wrong with Black Star. She felt it as well, even though it was a bit more muted in her—curiously enough.

He was in this kind of mental state because not only a few days ago had he killed a person for the first time in his life.

He had gone a step closer to a true assassin.

He had become—if even a tiny bit—like his family that he abhorred.

The difference from the final showdown he'd had with Mifune and all his other fights was in the fact that Mifune's soul had not digressed into fear, it had not strayed from the right path.

Mifune had been one hundred percent sane and human when his life had been brought to an end by the very hand of her technician.

And while he had promised that he would not waver in the path he had chosen and the samurai had stood in his path, Black Star had never promised that he wouldn't mourn the losses he was forced to accept on his way down the said path.

The boy had thought Mifune an equal, fought with him as such and whose life—as an equal—he had wanted to somehow spare, so they could one day meet again, under different circumstances, when they weren't pitted against each other.

But that had been impossible and one of them had had to die in the fight.

What could she say to make him feel any better? "It will be alright"? How could she claim that when she—and he, both—knew that it wouldn't, since the noble soul of the chivalrous samurai was no more? What good would "I'm sorry" do him? He felt sorry enough as was to suffice for two. "You need to be strong"? For what? "You'll pull through"? Of course he would—he had promised the other soul that was inside her—and promised to her personally too—that he would achieve his goals, so what good would her lecturing him do?

She had nothing—nothing she could say, at a loss of what to do.

So she carried into the living room the tray and set it down on the coffee table in front of him, the plastic smile stretching her facial muscles almost painfully in an effort that was in vain since he did not look up to even acknowledge her.

"Black Star?"

"Mmm?" Still he was looking into the small screen of the game, avoiding eye contact with her completely. A sharp pang speared her through the chest, but she kept up the smile that was more of a grimace still firm on her face, forcing cheer into her voice.

"I prepared your favourite snack, in case you felt hungry."

"Oh, cool! Just a minute, I want to complete this stage first." Black Star was such an honest to God person by definition, so pretense enthusiasm didn't come at all naturally for him. Then again, it might have been that he wasn't even trying.

Whatever the case, another sharp stab pierced Tsubaki's shrunken heart at the lackluster sound of his voice and the hollowness of his averted gaze.

"Sure," she chirped in an octave that was too high to feel right, the tension wearing her nerves thin while she sat rigid next to him on the sofa, back straight as a chord and hands clasped tightly in too formal of a gesture for the setting they were in.

The seconds ticked by and the minutes wore on, the silence stretching and stretching endlessly, until it became all-encompassing, the ridiculous and silly sounds coming from the game her meister was playing only seeming to emphasize it instead of dispersing it as was logical.

And all the while her mind was racing, searching for something to do or say to make the whole situation a little less uncomfortable, a little less tense and coming up empty-handed. She couldn't help thinking of it as though they were right then balanced on a very fine thread—a very fragile balance—that once broken could never be regained. She didn't know how deep his thoughts ran or what they were; she didn't know how he could interpret anything she said without considering her words carefully beforehand; she didn't know whether he would regard as unwelcome and demeaning any gesture on her side to console him—if he even felt the need for consolation, that is—and she didn't know how to break the topic in order to give him a chance to say anything he felt like saying on the topic.

She was truly and completely helpless.

And that made her feel like the greatest failure of a partner in the whole world.

What good was a partner who couldn't even offer any solace to her technician? What point was there to their partnership when she was so unreliable when it came to the things that actually _mattered_? How could he rely on her for support when she had no idea how to offer it?

She felt the lump rise into her throat even before it lodged securely into it. So she stood up slowly—as normally as she could—so as not to break him from his trance, and went to the bedroom, quietly closing the door behind her. She'd managed to make her hasty escape just in time because the minute the door clicked shut, her eyes welled with tears and she was once against overwhelmed by the overbearing sense of helplessness.

Her powerlessness built up inside her and strangulated her, in her complete loss as to what to do to diminish it, so she did the only thing she _could_.

She cried.

She rested her back against the closed door and slid down against it, her legs giving out beneath her, giving up just as her spirit had given up under the pressure, and she curled her legs to her chest and cried like the day she was born because there was nothing else she could do with the pent up frustrations and acute feelings of loss.

She cried for Mifune and for little Angela who couldn't know the truth because the sway of magic might take its toll on her while she was emotionally unstable. She cried for herself and the disappointment she was to her partner.

But above all, she cried for Black Star and her incapability to protect him, from the very path he had chosen that would slowly—one step at a time—but surely reshape him against his will and better judgement.

And unbeknownst to her, while she poured her heart out in the form of large round droplets that soaked her knees and carpet, just outside the bedroom door Black Star stood still, completely halted in his tracks as he'd gone to return the game to his room, listening to the soft muted sobs—muffled by the door and wall—of his partner crying to herself beyond.

All he _could_ do was stand there rooted to the spot, and listen because he had no words of consolation to offer her, no idea how to comfort her when he couldn't even comfort himself.

So he sat by the foot of the door, gaze drifting somewhere ahead, and listened to Tsubaki shedding the tears that he could never, and mourning what was irretrievably lost.

* * *

When she slipped out of the room—refreshed after a good cry and having concealed all evidence of her activities masterfully—Tsubaki almost jumped at the completely unexpected sight of her technician by the side of the bedroom threshold. She regarded him silently with querying eyes for a moment, until he waved into her line of vision the emptied tray she had earlier given him his food in.

"This was really good—you really should do this more often," he told her and the hint of a smile ghosted over his lips, managing to gently curl upwards the corners of his mouth, as she watched him intently.

They stood there for what felt like an infinitely long time, with him returning her gaze with just as much intensity, communicating in that contact more than words could ever convey.

At last the raven haired girl sighed softly through her nose and lightly settled herself next to him. She rested her back against the wall to his side, their shoulders touching while both of them stared ahead at a fixed point on the opposite wall.

After a few minutes of staying completely still, Tsubaki leant into her partner's slightly smaller frame, resting her head on the crook of his neck, gaze still turned in the same direction. The light pressure of his soft cheek she soon felt atop her head calmed her and she slowly eased her eyes shut.

They sat there without a care for the coldness of the floor for countless minutes, huddled together, and for once since the operation of taking over Baba Yaga's castle the silence between them was comfortable.

In that endless moment in time Tsubaki and Black Star were the only people in the world because nothing else existed but the cozy bubble that soothed the tension out of their systems and the calming feel of the other's even breathing to their side.

Because there are some cases in which both words and actions fail to convey what we want or need and thus become unnecessary of a medium.

Because what we want conveyed might already have been perceived without us having to say or do anything at all.

* * *

_A/N_: This came to me quite some time ago, but after reading chapter 61, I just had to write it, while inspiration had struck hot. I don't know how many realize it, but I really do think the fact he actually _killed_ Mifune, a person I reckon Black Star had some sense of weird admiration for, would shake Black Star's character's foundations. Thus, this ficlet. As always, opinions and constructive thoughts much appreciated and heartily welcomed. (Written to the sounds of Breaking Benjamin's "You Fight Me".)


	8. Kiss 01: The Love Letter

_**Important Note:**_ AU ahead. Because I can and because I liked the notion when it crossed my mind and wanted to see how it would play out. :3 I hope you enjoy.

* * *

_**The Love Letter**_

* * *

Theirs was a middle school as normal as normal could get. Most everyone attending was local folk, whose parents had attended the same school one generation ago, and whose grandparents had helped build the city into what it was today. Therefore if you cared to look over the swarm of heads in the hallways during recesses, you would see a sea of raven hair.

And, even though he was just as Japanese as the rest of his schoolmates, his unique aquamarine hair and bright emerald eyes made him stand out from the rest of the crowd like a diamond among a stack of pebbles.

He was loud and arrogant, quick to flatter himself and thus considered an annoyance by most. He made stupid mistakes most of the time that made him look 'uncool' in the eyes of many of his peers. He was a good friend to those who he held dear but sometimes he was a bit too silly and lacking in common sense.

All in all, Black Star was one of the most controversial entities in the entire school and there was barely a soul who hadn't at least heard legends about him.

But recently he had become more popular among the female part of the populace. This was so owing to his little speech—in a tone so calm and cool it had been quite unlike his usual self—in his last P.E. class, when he'd claimed that the scar that marred the flesh of his shoulder was a scar that would not heal until he had fulfilled a promise he had given.

Since then, he had often been called after classes were over behind the school gymnasium by girls who confessed their feelings of undying devotion for him.

He had heard all of them out until they were satisfied, accepted their feelings but rejected them all, claiming he could not return those feelings because he had a path he had chosen to follow and that he did not have the time or energy to spare at current for trifle matters such as romantic involvement of any kind.

Most guys thought he was saying that kind of stuff to the girls just to make himself look cooler in their eyes (and succeeding at that, it should be noted), but the girls didn't seem to care so much about that because they didn't relent in their attempts to gain his attentions.

She knew all of those rumors – she'd heard them circulating the campus.

She clutched the sealed envelope tighter in her hands, her heart hammering against her ribcage in nervousness while she stood in front of what she knew was his shoe locker.

She'd heard all about how he had rejected all those girls, but this was different.

It was different, so…

She put the letter in the locker before she lost her nerve and wimped out.

He always heard the girls out, so he would definitely listen to what she had to say, right?

And she wasn't at all like those other girls and this was _different_…

So maybe this time his answer wouldn't be a resounding 'no'?

* * *

"It was a real abomination, I swear to all that is holy and sacred in this world!" Kid half-wailed in anguish while he fetched his shoes from his locker. "There was absolutely _no_ symmetry in it, so I destroyed it before some unfortunate soul could get swindled into buying that blasphemy."

Black Star laughed heartily at his friend's antics while he reached for his own locker.

"You and your OCD with symmetry, Kid." The blue-haired boy reached into his locker while still facing his friend. "Are you sure you should've done that in a store though? They probably fined you quite nicely for destroying their property without buying first."

Kid gave a huff of indignation while he secured his shoes on his feet.

"As if I would sully myself by buying that kind of _outrageous_ piece of junk!"

Black Star laughed some more but his mirth was cut short when he grabbed something that was definitely not a shoe from his locker.

"Huh? What's this?" The green-eyed boy examined the envelope he'd procured.

It had written on the front in a neat, legible hand-writing a simple 'To Black Star' and nothing else. The boy sighed to himself and tore the thing open to find inside a sheet of paper with an equally enigmatic note.

_Please come by the school gymnasium after the end of the school day. There is something I wish to converse with you about, _it said. And it was signed only in initials, by some "T.N.", whoever she was.

And Black Star knew for sure that it was a 'she' and not a 'he' who was calling him out for several reasons.

Firstly, this was not the first letter of its kind that he had received, though this one was definitely written in a much politer manner than any of the others thus far.

Secondly, it was a well-known fact to anyone attending their middle school that the area behind the school gymnasium was a famous confession spot.

Thirdly, he had already turned down so many girls but they never seemed to relent in their attempts to ensnare him with their charming faces and pretty words, no matter what he said to them—oh, he was such a sinful man to captivate the poor kittens with his godliness!

Furthermore, no guy would go to the trouble of calling him out after school all the way out behind the gym because anything he had to say to him, he could say it in front of anyone, and it was always only girls who needed 'privacy' when speaking with him.

"What's that you have there?" Kid asked, attention piqued once he was done whining about that collision with asymmetry he had had the previous day. "Oh, another love letter, is it?" he smirked at his friend, who only nodded dumbly while studying the neat hand-writing.

"Hey, Kid, do you know some T.N.?" Black Star pondered while still staring—almost as if transfixed—at the sheet of paper.

"Hmm?" the raven-haired boy muttered in reply, not catching his friend's soft-spoken question.

"Never mind—just talking to myself," Black Star said dismissively, folding the letter and putting it back in the envelope which he shoved in his jumper's pocket. He then busied himself with putting his shoes on and saying his good-byes to Kid for the day.

A few rows of lockers away and barely within ear-shot, a girl with charcoal black hair tied in a neat ponytail that reached the small of her back clutched her hands closer to her chest and made her exit from the school building with bated breath and a racing heartbeat.

* * *

When he got to the meeting place, someone was already there. There was a figure reclining against the wall of the gym that straightened the moment he entered the person's peripheral vision.

And, of course, as always, he was absolutely correct – it had indeed been a girl that had called him out.

And one had to be blind not to notice that she was a real looker, too. She had a well-toned body with starkly defined feminine curves—was she really a middle school student?—and she had the characteristic nervous expression of all the girls that had summoned him to that same spot for the same reasons. But she was definitely the first that made him think how adorable making that kind of face made her look.

He cleared his throat though he rather meant to clear his mind.

"Are you the one who put this letter in my locker?" he asked levelly, showing her the envelope in question.

She nodded slowly, her gaze still pinned to the ground, as if ashamed to make eye contact. The thought '_How cute'_ crossed his mind before he could stop it, but he kicked it right out afterwards.

"So? What was it that you wanted to talk to me about, … ummm…?"

That was when the girl looked up and right at him for the first time. Their gazes locked and he saw the deepest blue set of eyes he had ever come across.

"It's Tsubaki," she said, obviously having caught his drift from the last sentence. A faint pinkness dusted her cheeks then, when she realized it had been too vague of her to just leave her initials on that letter. "Nice to meet you, Black Star." She bowed politely and he mimicked her, muttering his pleasantries as well.

Tsubaki smiled as she straightened again, her nervousness all but completely vanished if not for the tell-tale blush on her sides.

"You most probably don't even know me but I've always looked up to you, Black Star."

He couldn't help but feel a little sickened at being reminded why it was that she had called him there, using the same words that he'd heard so many times before that they had become vile and almost poisonous to him. Not even her pleasant and polite demeanor could change his disposition to this kind of situation.

"You are strong-willed, honest and determined, and I admire your ability to stand your ground, regardless of what those around you say."

Well, at least her repertoire varied a bit from the set standard… That could keep him entertained for the time being.

"And, …" Here, her voice trailed off and her gaze averted from his, as she was overcome by another bout of nervousness and despite himself, he couldn't for the life of him make himself feel at all annoyed with her for that like he would've felt naturally if it had been any of the other girls that had confessed to him.

She straightened again, plucking the courage to continue.

"And, since the end of the year is approaching and I heard that you're going to apply to that martial arts school Shibusen, I thought I'd come make this proposal to you before it's too late."

She looked at him with such a steadfast look in her eyes then that it was hard to believe that this girl had had difficulty looking him in the eye not a few minutes ago.

"Ever since I heard you speak at the school entrance ceremony, I've admired you greatly and my brother told me that in Shibusen it is essential to enter under the guidance of a dojo, so… If you haven't already made a promise with someone else, would you like to become a student of my family's dojo so that we can be a team applicable to Shibusen's standards?"

She'd all but yelled her question by the end of it but she was so proud of herself for managing to get it all out without stuttering or stumbling over her words that she couldn't care enough to be embarrassed at her vociferousness. When she dared lift her head up to see her companion's expression—she had bowed instinctively while she'd made her request – habits are really a scary thing—when he didn't even make a sound for a while, she was taken a little aback by the look of pure nonplus on Black Star's face.

"Umm, excuse me, is something the matter?" she inquired shakily after a few long moments of a complete, awkward silence had passed.

"Was… that all you wanted to ask me—whether I'd become a student at your dojo so that we could enroll in Shibusen?" he asked in the same leveled and indifferent tone.

"Yes," she agreed good-naturedly, blinking in her puzzlement at his odd demeanor.

Black Star nodded to himself at her affirmation, pinning his gaze to the ground at his feet. Tsubaki cocked her head to the side while he just stood there, silent once more. After a short while, he began trembling and before she could get worried over what was the matter, he burst right out, laughing aloud.

"That's seriously rich – you really had me going there for a while, I'll admit." He said, wiping a tear from the corner of his eye.

While his mirth died down and his fit of hysterics reduced to mere chuckles, Tsubaki felt as if her heart had plunged into the pit of her stomach from its proper place. She had never heard him ridiculing any other girl who had come to talk to him about personal matters because from the way he put it, it sounded like he was definitely rejecting her offer.

Even though this was different, and even though she wasn't like all those other girls…!

"I had a totally wrong idea of what this was about. I'm really sorry." She looked up and it took all her years of training under her father and brother's supervision not to jump at how close to her he was currently standing.

He was very slightly shorter than her and that really failed at inspiring awe but the serene look he was giving her—from so _close, close, close, too close_—really made her breath catch in her throat while his fanned against her skin.

"And, can you believe it—for the first time I feel kind of disappointed that I was wrong in my presumption." It was just a whisper a hair's breadth away from her mouth, and the wind that suddenly blew picked up the words and scattered them away before anyone else could catch them.

He was so near and his smile was so genuine and heart-warming, she found herself looking at him through half-lidded eyes and almost leaning forward, still closer to the warm breath that suddenly tickled both her flesh and her fancy. She had fallen prey to a mischievous spell before she could catch herself and he was coming closer and closer still…

The next thing Tsubaki realized was that the warmth was no longer there and neither was her companion, who had side-stepped her and moved onwards behind her, his hands crossed nonchalantly behind his head.

"Tsubaki, was it?" he began in a perky, cheerful tone. "Your family owns a dojo, you say? I wanna hear more about that!"

She watched his retreating back with her jaw slackened until she snapped back to reality, closed her mouth and hurried to catch up with him, a smile on her face while she explained the Nakatsukasa's principles.

And, as they talked as naturally as though they had known each other all along middle school instead of just having met one another as it was, Tsubaki couldn't help the elation that bubbled inside her while they walked towards her home together.

For Tsubaki knew that even if it had been a love letter that she had put in his shoe locker instead of offering her partnership in Shibusen, Black Star's answer might have still remained the same.

* * *

_A/N:_ Just a note that I feel is rather important: along the narrative halfway through the story, Black Star wondered, "_Was she really a middle school student?_" And the answer is No, she is not. Why and how she came to know Black Star and what he stands for, I'll leave a mystery. I purposefully depicted the way girls usually confess to their crushes in the traditional way as shown in anime, thus the plot of the chapter. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the story as much as I enjoyed writing it. Opinions, thoughts and feedback are always much welcome.

_Story written for LJ's "30 Kisses" prompt number 2 – "News; letter"._


	9. The Unforgiven

_**Foreword:**_ Listen to Metallica's "The Unforgiven" on repeat while reading this fic—it is necessary in order to instate the proper atmosphere in your mind.

* * *

_**The Unforgiven**_

* * *

He is no longer a boy—now a man, standing tall and proud on the mountains of achievements he's had in his time.

No longer just a student but a mentor, yet still a soldier for his school to call upon whenever the need arose.

So many things had changed—_he_ had changed so much—since the last time they had been in a place as remote as this, and Tsubaki couldn't help the thrill in her veins at returning to the basics together, taking on a simple mission together for the sake of pleasing Shinigami-sama's whim and need.

Their task was easy enough—retrieve the demon sword that was being developed by a witch in the small town unbeknownst to its inhabitants and leave without causing too much of a ruckus.

It should've been an easy job…

So why were they running away from the residence, chased away by the rocks, sticks and other knick-knack thrown by the townsfolk?

This had happened once before—and it had gone _exactly_ the same way—and this time she knew what the cause of these people's peculiar behaviour was.

Upon noticing the tattoo on Black Star's shoulder the people's previously decent conduct took a sudden and rapid change—it was almost enough in itself to give her whiplash—and their vehement animosity had forced the pair out of the vicinity of the town.

A heavy sigh tore from her partner's broad chest as he stared with listless eyes in the direction they had just come sprinting from.

He mumbled something about having forgotten how idiotic people could be with their ghost hunts and being scared of their own shadows.

But however well he masked it, he could never deceive her eyes and heart—she saw with vivid clarity the hurt that played upon his features just beneath the surface.

He had been labeled a cold-blooded murderer and unworthy human being by people who did not know the first thing about him. News of his great deeds had never reached their ears in this remote piece of land and instead they relied on faulty information from some twenty years now—information that wasn't even valid anymore. And still they refused to see the light, to recognize the wrongs of their reasoning.

It was all so unfair that it wore on Tsubaki's heart relentlessly; she couldn't even look her technician in the eyes, shouldering the shame that those people should've felt for their unjust demeanour in their stead.

Black Star scratched the back of his head, muttering in a disgruntled matter that their assignment had just got needlessly complicated and how much of a pain it was and how unsuited his big self was for this kind of petty mission.

Tsubaki only listened, her grief for her meister's fate robbing her of her words.

She just listened to him quietly and stared—experiencing a myriad of feelings, none of which were the least pleasant—at the star tattoo on his bare shoulder that seemed to stare right back at her with an air of condescension and triumph at the injustice it had brought upon its bearer.

They continued their mission regardless, both their mentalities a little worse for wear.

* * *

He kissed her with such unbridled passion that she felt as though her skin might burst in flame from the sheer intensity of their union.

Their hands were roaming one another's form in a flurry of activity and desperation for attention and friction.

His hands were kneading her breasts, massaging her sides, tracing the lines of her curves—he was all over her.

She reciprocated with matching fervour, her nimble fingers twisting in his hair, sliding beneath his shirt and pulling him closer into her embrace.

They struggled somewhat clumsily in their haste and desire with ridding themselves of their clothing garments, her blouse and bra being the first to leave the stage. She wrestled with the buttons of his shirt and she could feel his grin growing against her lips in their kiss while she fumbled with the accursed obstacles.

When they parted for air he used the chance to aid her in her predicament, throwing his shirt to the side himself and planning to get back to their earlier activities.

He was somewhat surprised to find his lover wearing a morose expression as she stared at his bare shoulders, her gaze heavy with a sadness he could not place.

Alarmed, he asked her what was wrong and, a bit more tentatively, if he'd done something wrong.

She just shook her head slowly and made a step closer to him, back in his embrace. But instead of resuming her previous flurry of activity, she rested her head lightly—as if he were fragile enough to break if she didn't handle him with extreme care—on the crook of his neck, her right arm hugging him around the waist. He returned the one-armed hug hesitantly; still clueless what had made her mood change quite so suddenly.

She started tracing patterns on his right shoulder against which her head was resting and at first the patterns seemed random and pointless to his garbled mind's eye.

But after she repeated them several times—tracing his soft skin with her even softer fingertip—he recognized it. How could he not, for it was the bane of his existence?

She was fingering the outlines of his brand as the last survivor of a clan of petty murderers who would've done anything in exchange for an adequate sum of money.

The previous haphazard whirlwind of passion subdued to infinitesimal levels as the two just stayed close together, leading a conversation without words.

Then Tsubaki pulled her head away from him and leant in to kiss his shoulder, right in the center of the star tattoo.

When she locked her eyes with his still puzzled gaze again, there was the gentlest look in her eyes then, a mix of sadness, acceptance and sympathy swimming in her features.

She wanted him to know that even if he would forever remain unforgiven by the world and everyone for sins he had never committed, she would help him shoulder the brunt of their blindness and groundless accusations.

She had told him that they were in it all together.

That meant that even if he was to remain branded, labeled and cast out by the whole world, she would still keep true to her word and accept his fate as her own; that in her eyes there was nothing he had done that required forgiveness.

The next kiss he placed upon her lips was filled with such heart-warming tenderness she knew she needn't worry if she'd conveyed her feelings to him.

* * *

_A/N:_ Plot bunnies ate me alive last night, right when I was planning to sleep. D: I just had to write this after listening to Metallica's "The Unforgiven", hence the title. Read the song lyrics if you don't know them and tell me whether the text isn't meant for Black Star's struggle against people's prejudice—the only part I don't think applies to his situation is the verse about the "tired man he is" and "dying regretfully" and what have you.

It's alright even if you don't like it. But it felt to me like a profound moment that just had to be written out. I still hope you enjoyed it though and opinions are love~!


	10. Lost in the Rain

_**Lost in the Rain**_

* * *

Black Star was busily playing on his portable emulator game with his characteristic fervour—he had just a couple more stages of it left and then he was going to be the biggest man in that game as well, hell yes!—when there was excessively loud banging against his door.

Of course, being the great person that he was, he didn't have any time or attention to spare to mere mortals when he was busy conquering godliness in this game so he didn't answer it.

As Tsubaki was nowhere to be found, there was no one around to welcome the Star team's visitors.

The banging repeated, and this time the malice behind it was a bit more tangible as well but it failed to intrigue him enough to get up and see who it was.

By the time the knocking repeated for a third time, he wondered when exactly his visitors would come up with the brilliant idea of checking if the unlocked front door was open…

"Black Star!" Maka barged in, probably after Soul had suggested they try to enter.

Her host did not lift his gaze from his game and that seemed to aggravate his fellow technician's already short temper even further.

Not that he gave a damn.

"Where is Tsubaki-chan?! We've been trying to find her all day and I can't find her anywhere!" the girl yelled shrilly. The height of her voice hurt his sensitive ears.

"Huh? She's not with you?" he muttered disinterestedly, eyes still pinned to the game.

He could practically feel the vein pulsing into visibility on Maka's forehead in her ire.

"What is that supposed to mean?" she grinded out through clenched teeth. "Was she supposed to be with me? We had an agreement to go out today but she never showed up and I got worried and now you tell me she's _gone_ and you _don't know where she went_?"

He gave a non-committal grunt, fingers still moving nimbly over the controls of the game console.

"Yeah, well, sorry for not being her keeper," he muttered, clearly irritated with Maka trying to tell him what to do and how to act.

As for the auburn-head in question, she was staring at him in mild confused annoyance now instead of her previous fury.

"Did you have a fight?" Soul said in a disbelieving tone. It was what both he and his meister thought.

Black Star shrugging lopsidedly was all the confirmation any of them needed for their suspicions.

When he continued to ignore them in favour of his stupid game though, Maka's temper flared again and she yanked the console out of his grasp, making him make a loud sound of protest.

"Hey! I was playing that! You ruined my winning streak!" he complained childishly with a pout that was most unbecoming of his seventeen years and his supposedly high stature.

"Can you be serious for a second? No one has seen her since this afternoon, she probably went off somewhere on her own because _you_ upset her and now all you can think about is some stupid game? What kind of partner are you, really?"

Soul felt a cold droplet of sweat sliding down the side of his face as he was sure that this wasn't going to end well. Black Star never let anyone talk back to him like Maka currently was and when he unleashed his displeasure on people it usually wasn't pretty.

But the azure-haired male surprised his Death Scythe peer when he only glared like a petulant child in a direction completely opposite of where Maka was standing in front of him and not saying a thing while she scrutinized him expectantly.

Then his face lit up again and Soul felt like he could practically see the light bulb materializing out of thin air next to his head as his idea dawned on him.

"Oh, I know! I should go get the latest issue of my manga magazine! Today is the last day that I can get it and I don't want to have missing issues in my collection! Thanks for reminding me, little ones!"

He bounced up from the sofa and bolted for the door with a wide grin plastered on his features, humming a merry tune to himself while Maka stared disbelievingly—her jaw slackened and her eyes wide as saucers—at his retreating back.

"You're not serious about this, are you? Tell me you're kidding!" she practically begged while Black Star fastened the laces of his shoes.

"Of course I'm serious! Have you ever had missing pieces from your collections? It's really annoying!" He straightened again, having completed his task of tying his shoes. "Alright – so don't forget to lock up when you leave, kiddies—I'm taking off now. Later!"

The door slammed in their nonplussed faces before they could utter another sound. They only managed to stare and blink at the now closed door for a while, until what had just transpired actually caught up to them.

Soul could practically _hear_ something in his partner snap.

"What kind of irresponsible moron is he, really?! That Black Star, he's such a failure as a technician it shames me to be put on the same level as him! And to think he didn't even care that Tsubaki-chan is somewhere out there, all alone in that downpour that's been going on for hours, argh! He's such a selfish twerp, useless fan boy—I can't stand him!" She stomped her foot moodily in an attempt to vent her frustrations. "He doesn't appreciate Tsubaki-chan at all, that moron!"

Her white-haired Death Scythe friend couldn't help but think that something was definitely wrong with this picture. He knew Black Star well and he was aware that even though he behaved like an idiot more often than not, he knew how to treat the things he held dear. So his current behaviour was more than simply an enigma to the other boy.

He sighed heavily and rolled his eyes to the side, uncertain what to make of the exchange that had just transpired between his partner and his best friend.

And that was when his gaze landed on the bookshelf stacked with volumes and volumes of magazines.

The young Death Scythe grinned in his trademark way, showing two rows of perfectly white, sharp teeth.

"Well, I am not so sure about that last one…" he muttered cryptically, making Maka whip her head around to shift her glare on him.

* * *

The pelting rain hammered against the material of her umbrella, and each droplet that splashed right next to her sandal-clad feet made her shudder with the cold sensation.

This had definitely not been her idea of what would've happened when she went out that afternoon.

Not only did she get into a pretty vicious—or, at least, for _their_ standards—fight with Black Star over something _stupid_—so _stupid, stupid, stupid!!_—but she also managed to get herself so distraught over it that when she went out to get some fresh air during a walk in town, she got herself lost in the outskirts.

Now she was stranded, alone and freezing in the torrential rain and she had no idea how to get herself out of this situation.

The only up-side was that she'd actually had enough reasonable thought in her head to grab an umbrella on her way out because she'd seen how cloudy the weather had been all day.

She sighed and hugged her knees closer to her chest, her miserable gaze pinned somewhere in the distance just below the edge of the umbrella. She was too lightly dressed for this kind of endeavour—she'd stormed out so quick she hadn't even changed her house clothes and she'd put on the shoes that were the easiest to don on—and she had never expected she'd get lost like this.

She had tried finding someone to call home but there didn't seem to be a living soul around for some reason. She had no idea in what direction to take to get back to their flat—would he still be mad if she got back soon? She wondered with a painfully constricted heart—and she knew that walking around in this rain wouldn't be her best decision yet, so she'd opted instead for sitting down on a threshold and waiting for the downpour to let up a bit before resuming her attempts to get home.

As the minutes turned into hours and she still hadn't moved an inch her heart began sinking in despair. Sadness overwhelmed her while she considered why she was even there in the first place and her eyes welled up.

She hunched forward, placing her forehead between her kneecaps and her hand holding the umbrella over her head tightening around the handle.

"Black Star…!" The name came out quietly and unevenly, strangled in her throat by her mounting grief and frustration.

This was why she hated confrontation. This was why she avoided it like the plague usually.

She'd picked a fine time to show character! She felt so angry with herself she felt just about ready to start sputtering in indignation.

She wanted to go home. She so desperately wanted to get back home. She wanted a cup of warm milk after taking a long, hot bath that would get her blood circulating back in her extremities.

But most of all she wanted to make up with Black Star because the thought he was angry with her bothered her on an inexplicably deep level.

Her eyes welled up with more unshed tears again.

They blurred her vision so much that she more heard than saw the pair of feet that stopped right in front of her.

She swallowed back the overflow of emotion and lifted her head—and her umbrella—to find none other than Black Star—drenched to the bone, holding a bag under one of his well-toned t-shirt clad arms while he had his hands shoved in his pants pockets—standing before her and scrutinizing her with a critical look in his steely emerald gaze.

"What _the hell_ are you doing there?" he muttered just barely above a whisper and she found it hard to capture just what he had said because his soft-spoken question got drowned out by the strength of the falling raindrops all around them.

"I… I got lost and… I didn't know how to get back… So, I… I decided to wait for the rain to ease up before I tried wandering around, and—" She hiccupped in the beginnings of a sob that halted her words as her tears fell unbridled from her eyes down her cheeks.

Black Star stared at her listlessly, unmoving from the spot he had taken in front of her. She was acutely aware he was getting wetter and wetter but that didn't seem to bother him at all—for all he cared, the torrential rain could as well have been a refreshing, light summer breeze.

"W—…Why are _you_ here?" she finally managed to get out, pressured into slight incoherence by the intensity of his gaze.

He motioned towards the package on his hold.

"Had to get my manga fix before the next issue comes out tomorrow. Missing items in collections are a real pain," he explained simply, as though that was a reasonable enough argument to go out without any cover from the downpour and venture into the farthest parts of Death City.

They stared at each other for a moment that seemed agonizingly long to her—she felt like she was going to crack under the pressure of his heavy calculating gaze any second—almost stretching into eternity before another onslaught of emotion choked her.

"Black Star, I'm so sorry…"

She wanted to beg for his forgiveness, she wanted to tell him how difficultly she handled shouldering the brunt of his anger and displeasure with her but the words fled her, chased away by the emotions that made her voice crack and her mind scatter.

He gave a small sigh, the look in his eyes softening.

"Don't be." He rubbed the back of his neck with the hand that wasn't holding his magazine to his body. "It… wasn't your fault and you had a point…" The words felt awkward on his tongue, like they always did in these situations.

He was really horrible at this but he was big enough a man to face up to his faults and mistakes.

"What I mean to say is I'm not mad and it's your apartment too so you don't have to leave just because we had a spat… So…" His hold on his neck was starting to get painful and he had difficulty shifting his gaze back to her form, now that she was looking with wide, curious eyes up at him.

Damn it, he really hated apologizing with a passion—it was probably the only thing his humongous self had difficulty mastering.

"What I mean to say is… I… I wasn't right,"—never in a billion years would he ever admit he was "wrong"; hell would freeze over before that phrase ever got out of his mouth—"…and… I'm really…" He ruffled his hair, incapable to get one small but infinitely important word out of his mouth.

He groaned in his disgruntlement, turning on the back of his heel, letting her face his back.

"Just…! Never mind this whole thing and let's get back home, okay? This rain is seriously starting to piss me off!"

He started trudging with heavy steps and it took her a few moments of incredulous gaping until she realized she was probably expected to follow.

She ran up to his side and smiled tentatively at him, offering him a share of the umbrella, even though she was well aware that he was soaked to the bone already.

While they walked silently in the direction of their apartment—she was so grateful for his unrivaled sense of orientation in that moment, for being able to find her and then get them both back home without a hitch—she eyed the package in his hand thoughtfully.

"Black Star… didn't you already buy that book earlier this month?"

He told her she had the wrong idea and that this was the first time he had come in possession of that magazine issue.

However she still found it rather curious that he had chosen this mostly uninhabited part of the city to venture out to buy his comics, right then and in the middle of a downpour, without any means of cover nonetheless.

She smiled to herself and felt as if a weight had been lifted off her shoulders.

She hugged his toned arm to her chest with her free one, completely unconcerned that she was getting herself just as soaked as he was.

She thought, as they walked slowly back to their flat, that maybe getting lost in the rain wasn't such a horrid experience after all.

* * *

_A/N:_ There you have it folks. Plot bunny attacked me today while getting back home in the rain, having myself soaked and displeased with the world. So I decided to sit down and write it while the notion was fresh in my mind. I wonder if you liked it. x33 Did everyone understand that Black Star had long since bought that magazine and had just come up with the first excuse that came to mind to bolt up and go search for his better half? x3

Feedback makes my day brighter~ :3


	11. Used as Intended

_Written for rubymight on LJ for the prompt she gave me, "Condom"._

**Warning!** Some not safe for work content ahead. Beware! Also, rating just went M for nudity and adult situations.

* * *

_**Used as Intended**_

* * *

She was in the kitchen, cooking and humming a merry tune to herself. Christmas was just around the corner and the festive spirit had taken her over completely, prompting her to make cakes and sweets and other various sorts of delicacies for her partner and friends to enjoy.

So, feeling the urge to do something to bring the lovely smiles to her friends' faces again, she'd decided to make a pudding that they could enjoy that evening during their weekly gathering that so happened to be at the Star team's abode this time.

Having already mostly completed her work in the kitchen, she was washing the dishes and merrily cleaning after herself when she heard the front door open and a commotion make its way inside the apartment. She heard Black Star's voice—several pitches higher in volume than everyone else that had followed him inside—before she got a chance to get alarmed so instead she just wondered what had got them so riled up.

She untied her apron and draped it over the back of a nearby chair before making her way into the living room.

"I don't get it—what the hell can this be used for?!" Black Star all but demanded of a small object lying flat on his palm. He glared at it as though hoping he could threaten it into confession what its purpose was.

Soul was curiously eyeing a similar object in his hand's hold.

"I don't think I've seen anything like this before," he ventured out loud at length, turning the small rectangular package this way and that, as if changing the perspective of his scrutiny would somehow miraculously grant him the desired answer.

Maka had one as well but she didn't utter a sound as she listened to her pair of friends discus the odd item. She didn't like saying things that incriminated her of ignorance so she kept quiet the entire time while her partner and his best friend chattered in excited tones about the possible origins and purpose of their newly acquired … whatever they were.

Tsubaki strode languidly into the room just in time to see Black Star ripping the small parcel open and extracting a see-through rubber-like object from it.

"Hey, guys—what's going on, why the ruckus?" she asked in a carefree tone, a smile set on her features.

However, when her mind finally caught up to what it was they were holding—and the completely clueless looks on all their faces—she froze in place, what felt like a block of ice settling in the pit of her stomach. She hoped this wouldn't be about what she had an inkling it might be about.

Black Star whipped his head around to look at her, an idiotically determined look set on his features as he poked the rubber thing.

"Oh! Tsubaki! You were home!" he exulted, zeroing in on her in that way that she knew would spell trouble for her. "Do you know what these things are? We had them handed out to us for free when we went downtown but no one bothered to tell us what it's used for."

He'd supposed that because she was a bit older than the three of them, she'd know what the things they were holding were. He'd supposed quite correctly and that made her release an internal, pitiful groan.

This was going to be so… _awkward_ and humiliating…

"Umm…" she began, stalling for time while she pondered how she should explain what the purpose of a condom was. "You say you got them downtown?" She decided to pick the cowardly way and try to distract him from his question. "Why would someone give all of you condoms?"

He made a thoughtful noise and from the look on his face she could tell her diversion tactic hadn't worked. He'd heard selectively what he'd wanted and ignored the rest.

Great… Now there was no worming out of this one.

"Some bunch of teenagers had a whole bag of these and was giving them away to the passers-by. When we came in their vicinity, they decided to give us some as well," Soul's explained smoothly while he tore open the one in his hand as well, eyeing it critically.

Maka huffed lightly, rolling her eyes to the side.

"They had this _really weird_ look on their faces when they saw the three of us together and their expressions turned even more suspicious after they gave these things to us. I thought it was really rude of them, that kind of behaviour towards people they've never seen before in their life."

Tsubaki nearly failed to contain her dejected groan. She knew exactly why those kids had been so "weird", as Maka called it, when they'd seen two boys and a girl as they handed out condoms for the international day for fighting AIDS.

She sighed to herself. She'd hoped that at last Maka knew what this was about but she seemed to be just as oblivious as the two boys, the only difference being that she wasn't being nearly as vocal about her ignorance as they were.

"So what's it for?" Black Star piped up suddenly, stretching out the latex object before his eyes.

"It looks weird and pointless," Soul imparted as well in agreement to his best buddy's question.

She laughed nervously, wondering how she was supposed to explain it. "Well, this thing is used to put on your erect penis before you penetrate your lover's vagina in order to keep your ejaculation liquids from having unwanted repercussions nine months later"? She _really_ didn't think so. She wouldn't even get as far as "erect" before she'd be too humiliated under their scrutiny to continue.

"Um, well…" She was practically sweating bullets but, thankfully, all their attentions were too drawn by the alien objects to pay her much heed. "Uhh… How do I explain this?…" she mulled aloud at a loss as to what to do and how to continue.

What she wouldn't do to have the ground just open up and swallow her whole in that very instant…

Being the eldest among them had never been tougher on her.

That's when before her very gaze Black Star decided to blow the condom, filling it with the air from his lungs and holding it out at an arm's reach. She felt appalled by his complete lack of common sense in his total incomprehension—he was acting as if it was a balloon, for goodness' sake!

Both his and Soul's faces brightened a bit at that though, at having found the idea behind the weird contraption even without Tsubaki's aid.

"Is today some sort of celebration that they're handing out balloons?" Soul inquired, looking at his partner over his shoulder. She shook her auburn head to show she had no idea even if it was.

If she hadn't been before, Tsubaki was now definitely rendered completely speechless at their quick exchange. What kind of sheltered life had these kids lived not to have a _clue_ what a condom was?

"I think it's more durable than an ordinary balloon though," Black Star muttered aloud as he felt the material of the makeshift balloon. She wondered how it could be that he didn't find its peculiar form odd at all—how _none_ of them did. "I'm gonna go try fill it with water!"

Half an hour later and lots of water splashing afterwards, the weapon girl was at the end of her wits. She reckoned she really should tell them what condoms were actually _really _for—they would need to use them _some_ day, after all—but she just couldn't bring herself to land herself back in that humiliating situation again. This was the kind of conversation they should have with a parent or a guardian—why should _she_ have to be the one to explain this kind of thing?

So when Black Star told her,

"Aren't you in awe of my big self, Tsubaki? I did a perfectly good job figuring out what this condom thing is without ever needing you to say a word, hyahaha! Oh, halo, come forth and appear over me for I have ascended!"

She just couldn't bring herself to rebuke him. She'd rather he had the wrong idea than have to talk with him—_him_, of all people, she thought with a blush—about sex.

So she just smiled sweetly at him, nodding.

"Yeah, you're so great, Black Star!"

Even if she didn't tell him now, he'd definitely find out one way or another what it was for.

After all, there was _no way_ in hell she'd talk to her thirteen-year-old Shibusen partner whom she shared a room with about the intricate details of intercourse when she didn't even know whether he even had sexual urges yet.

* * *

She grabbed him by the neck, pulling him in for a searing kiss that robbed him and her both of their breath. She walked backwards, dragging him with her in direction of their bed until the back of her knees hit against the edge and she collapsed back on the covers.

But she wasn't about to let herself go down before pulling him in as well.

He crawled on top of her, propping himself up on a lean arm lined with sinewy muscle and raining passionate open-mouthed kisses down the column of her neck while his hands took liberties exploring her ample chest.

It had been more than three and a half years since they'd first become partners and a little over a month since they'd become lovers.

At first it had felt odd to harbour this kind of feelings for someone she'd practically watched grow up—from a loud, often perceived as obnoxious kid through an awkward teenager whose rapidly growing limbs seemed to get in his way in everything he did to the virile young man that was now eliciting responses and feelings from her she hadn't thought her body was capable of experiencing—but she'd forgotten all about propriety and the like when he'd kissed her that day several weeks ago.

Clothes were tossed aside, discarded while they stayed tangled together in a flurry of passion and heated emotions. It wasn't long until they were stripped down completely, perfectly naked and panting as they attempted to catch their breathing where they lay sprawled on the spacious bed, with him at full length and hard, positioned between her spread legs.

"Give me the condom," she suddenly demanded, making him blink a few times in confusion.

He didn't waste time obliging her without question though, whatever she had in mind. He handed her the little rectangular package, caught completely off-guard when she snatched it from him and flipped them over, until he was lying back-first on the bed and blinking in his slight nonplus at her unusual behaviour.

She didn't say anything more though, opting for actions instead as they spoke louder than words ever could.

She used her mouth to rip open the condom, basking in the lustful gaze he deigned her with as he looked up at her. She knew well he liked it especially much when she was wilder, so she used that to her advantage while she took out the object from its wrapping, placing a kiss on his abdomen while she lowered herself closer to his erect member.

She smiled impishly at him while she slid the latex on him, feeling a jolt of giddiness at the throaty moan he awarded her ministrations with, throwing his head back in the pillow and bucking his hips against her hand, aching for more of the wonderful friction.

If she'd had a mind for anything else but what was happening in that very moment, she'd consider just how far he had gone, from thinking a condom was every bit like a balloon and filling them with water and splashing around with them to actually using them as they were intended.

But as it was she didn't have half a mind for anything else but making him emit some more of those absolutely delicious sounds for her.

She left one of the most feather-light of kisses on the base of his shaft, pleased to hear his lust-ridden groan at her action before she dragged herself back up to him, straddling him.

All in all, it was safe to say that Tsubaki was pleased beyond belief with the fact he'd chosen her as the person to show him how a condom was used as intended.

* * *

_A/N:_ I realize that this is the first time I've written my characters being responsible and having safe sex. That is not because I forsake being responsible otherwise – by no means! Just to keep that in the clear. :3

I hope it was a satisfying read. :3 Opinions and constructive criticism are always welcome~!


	12. Kiss 02: Firm Shove

_**Firm Shove in the Right Direction**_

* * *

It echoed hollowly in his mind, over and over, like a broken record. It pestered him, tortured him, ridiculed him, making him hear it in his head over and over again.

"I've been stationed in a small, remote country in the mainland," Tsubaki had said with a tone as sullen as he felt, her eyes averted to the ground and her form shaking barely discernibly. "I am to leave for the position tomorrow because my assistance there is of utmost importance and the matter is very urgent."

He stared at her vacuously, as if expecting there to be a continuation to this nightmare but when she remained silent for a long time after saying this, he found the chance to pull himself together a plaster a (painfully fake) smile on his face.

"Ohh, you've been a Death Scythe for such a short time and you already get your first important mission? I'm so proud of you, Tsubaki!"

The grin he gave her made her heart contort in her chest but she attempted to reciprocate the expression, though she was sure it probably came out as more of a grimace than anything else.

"I'll… do my best!" she promised but it didn't take a genius to figure out her heart wasn't really in it.

A whole different conversation took place between them at the same time, and it did so without a need for any words or actions.

_I don't want to be separated; I don't want to go,_ Tsubaki shouted soundlessly, her spirit writhing in anguish inside the confines of her body.

_Please don't leave_, he begged without a word or a breath, his face still twisted in that weird, untruthful smile.

But they couldn't say any of that out loud.

Because she had responsibilities not only to him now that she was a Death Scythe. She was not only his partner, but also Shinigami-sama's direct underling. So when there was something she was ordered to do, she was offered no choice but to do it.

She did not wish to leave but it was not a matter that could be contended with.

She would do as she was told and go to the mainland to sort out God knows what mess for God knows how long a time.

And she'd have to somehow do it alone, without the pillar of strength that her partner had always been to her.

They were still in the same room but the distance between them had already begun to grow relentlessly.

They were still together in the same premise yet they felt lonelier than they ever had before.

* * *

The very first thing he did the next day was to go inquire Shinigami-sama about this outrage.

"Why must you send Tsubaki to deal with the mainland's problems? Isn't there anyone closer to the source of trouble to deal with it?" Black Star's brow was furrowed and his face was set in a stern expression that emanated his discontent if his words failed to convey his feelings on the matter at hand he'd come to discuss with his superior.

Shinigami-sama cocked his head to the side as he regarded his pupil.

"It is imperative that she goes, because she's the only one with that kind of ability. There's no one else who can manage it."

Black Star had tried to reason with the Grim Reaper for a while afterwards but to no avail. The man had been steadfast in his claim that he could have no one other than Tsubaki to deal with this matter the origins of which he would also not disclose. When he saw that he was getting nowhere with that argument, the assassin ruffled his hair in his vexation and left Shibusen's founder to his own devices. Black Star knew a lost cause when he saw one.

That day, after classes in Shibusen were over, the blue-haired youth came home to an empty apartment for the first time in many, many years.

* * *

Tsubaki had left early morning on the day after receiving her orders.

She had used Black Star's absence to take her leave. When he came back after his argument with Shinigami-sama that day, Black Star found that most of her necessary belongings were gone and that there was a note on the living-room table.

'_I'm so sorry for taking off in such a sneaky manner, but I'm really bad with good-byes. That, and… I really don't know how I'm supposed to say good-bye to you, so I chose just to leave you this note instead. I took only a few necessities with me because I didn't want to carry too much things. _

_Please don't forget to eat well and take care of yourself while I'm gone. I'll try to write or call as soon as I get a grasp of the situation over there._

_Tsubaki.'_

He read the note written in her beautifully neat hand-writing. He read it again, and then again, until he was just staring at the sheet of paper, as though holding onto a precious memento of some sort.

He was thought a fool by many of his peers but his few closest people knew he was anything but stupid. He could read the thoughts and intentions of his dearest friends that they didn't mean to make known, didn't want to convey in a direct manner.

And in the short letter left behind by his closest person, he read between the lines; '_I didn't want to take too many of my things with me because I didn't want to make the finality of my moving out too evident._'

That had been the first evening he came back to an empty place, void of any cheer and homely feel.

The days following it were equally as dreary and passed by just as uneventfully and boringly as the first.

To make the wait for a call or a word from his partner—he stubbornly refused to let go of that notion, no matter how much distance separated them—more bearable, Black Star threw himself whole-heartedly into his work and his training, exerting all of the excess energy that pent up inside him because of his annoyance with this situation.

He pushed and shoved himself onward until he could barely breathe at the end of the day, filling his schedule with so much exercise for both his mind and body that he would have no time to ponder anything.

He didn't want to consider how much a constant in his life Tsubaki had become, to the point that he'd taken her presence for granted. He didn't want to think about how he'd always (naively) believed she'd be by his side forever, so he never rushed to saying the things that really mattered. Because she would always be there and he could wait for the perfect opportunity to say what he had to say—until then he could concentrate on the things that were beyond his reach, and work towards achieving them.

He had never thought that a time would come that she wouldn't be just an arm's length away, no longer at his side with her lovely amicable smile and kind word of encouragement.

He had never hurried himself into saying the things he really thought—about her, about their partnership, about what it all meant to him—and now it was too late.

He couldn't drive away the obtrusive thoughts in the hours and hours of silence that fell upon him each night that he tossed and turned in bed, trying to catch some of that elusive sleep.

And in those moments, when he was home and the only noise came from the TV or a game he busied himself with, he couldn't help but wonder;

Had this place always been so _huge_?

* * *

On the sixth day of Tsubaki's departure Black Star just stood up in the middle of a lesson in Shibusen and waltzed right out of the room without uttering a word of explanation, leaving the whole of his class baffled at his actions.

Soul gave chase about the time he had reached the front halls of the school, hot on his trail. But he walked on while his long-time friend tailed him, his determined stride not wavering even for a moment.

"Hey, Black Star, what are you doing, walking out of class like that? Where are you even going? Hey, talk to me, damn it!" Soul said, slightly irritated when his buddy did not even acknowledge him at his side as they both trudged on in unison down the hallways of the school.

"I have a plane to catch," the azure-haired technician explained simply, making his friend's expression falter.

"What?" the young Death Scythe muttered, failing to see the connection.

"I have a plane to catch that will leave without me unless I get going right away," the meister elaborated, widening his stride and quickening his pace as he did.

"But where are you going to? This is the first I've heard of a trip…"

"The mainland."

Soul deadpanned and his step halted when he heard his friend's explanation.

"Are you going to follow her? But… she'll come back eventually, right?" He got no response to these questions, so he pressed on. "What about your job at Shibusen? Are you planning on neglecting your responsibilities, Black Star?" His inquiries should've struck home but instead the pianist's companion marched onward without a glance back.

"Soul-kun is right, Black Star-kun," Shinigami-sama chirped in a sing-song voice, popping into the youngster's way, making him almost collide with the towering black figure. "Are you planning on neglecting your responsibilities to the school? I'm not sure how I'd feel about that if it happened."

Black Star eyed the shinigami levelly before side-stepping him and continuing on his way.

"There are some things that need to be said and done and the time has come for me to take care of mine." His tone held an air of finality that left both Shinigami-sama and Soul at a loss for words or a reaction in his way.

* * *

The young assassin arrived at the nearest airport to the place Tsubaki had been stationed in no time and he set off to trace her down as soon as possible while fixing his bag on his shoulder. He'd only grabbed a change of clothes and his gear in his haste to depart because he didn't have the attention to spare for idiocy when he had a mission.

He'd made up his mind exactly what he'd say when he found her and that he wouldn't take 'no' for an answer. He wasn't going to let anything come between their partnership—relationship—not physical distance and most definitely not Shinigami.

He'd had it all planned out and unfolding in his mind's eye. He'd been so engrossed in his scenarios that he'd almost missed the woman with long raven hair that passed by him, in a direction opposite to the one he was heading. But his peripheral vision caught sight of her neatly gathered ponytail and he reacted on instinct, turning to look at the person whose silhouette so closely resembled that of his partner.

His emerald gaze locked with the deepest pair of navy blue eyes across the airport station, and his jaw fell slack just as the girl's face pulled into a look of complete surprise.

"Tsubaki?!" "Black Star!" they exclaimed simultaneously with equally incredulous looks. "What are you doing here?" they said in perfect unison again.

* * *

They stared in the direction he had left long after Black Star's back was no longer visible.

"He really actually left…" Soul finally piped up in a somewhat disbelieving tone.

"Oh, phooey… I guess he really did get very serious about this issue."

Soul eyed his superior suspiciously, catching something in his tone that most might not notice.

"Say, Shinigami-sama… You didn't purposefully send Tsubaki on that mission in such a quick matter in order to push Black Star into something, did you?"

The Grim Reaper laughed to himself in his silly manner, turning his back towards his young weapon.

"Why would you think that, Soul-kun? Do I really look like the crafty type to you?"

Soul laughed to himself wryly and muttered something about the most suspicious person around and shady plans.

* * *

The very air between them felt charged and it unsettled them in a way that made the very hairs on the backs of their necks stand on end with the excitement of the unlikely coincidence of their running into each other in the middle of nowhere.

"I just got off the plane from Death City. But what are _you_ doing here? Aren't you supposed to be working hard at the local headquarters?"

The smile she was giving him as he stared at her as though she was an apparition that might disappear any moment made something in his chest shift and he felt even surer of his coming there.

"I just got my ticket and was about to board a plane as well."

Only then did his gaze zero in on the large bag in her hand's hold—the same bag she'd used to take her things away. There was another shift in his ribcage that made an unknown elation that he hadn't known for the last week spring up in him.

Tsubaki cocked her head curiously to the side.

"But, what are you doing here, really? Didn't Shinigami-sama tell you?"

The young man's brow rose at that.

"Tell me? Tell me what?"

* * *

"Oh, snap, I think I forgot to tell him… Was it important, I wonder?" Soul's ears perked up at that bit of information.

"What did you forget to tell him?"

"I forgot to say that Tsubaki's engagement is for a week only. Do you think it will turn out to be troublesome that I failed to mention that?"

The look on Soul's face was priceless right then. Because he couldn't help imagining Black Star's reaction to this kind of info.

* * *

Tsubaki's eyebrows rose worriedly as she looked at her meister tremble before her.

"Black Star?" she tried to break him out of his reverie, but he didn't seem to be paying her too much heed at that moment.

He was too busy shaking in barely controlled annoyance, his hand clenched in a fist in front of his face.

"That silly geezer… He really got me going this time around… Just you wait, danna, when I get back…" It was at that moment that Black Star made a silent vow to himself to get back at Shinigami-sama once they were back home in Death City.

Tsubaki set her bag down with her plane ticket on top of it and approached her technician cautiously.

"Are you alright, Black Star?" she asked in a tiny voice, starting to think that something must have happened to him.

She was completely taken aback—eyes wide and mouth agape—when he tugged her into a tight embrace, pulling her flush frame flush against his considerably larger one.

She gave an indignant squeak at the movement at first but made no move to release herself. Instead, she mumbled something about puzzlement and being in public and everyone staring. But Black Star really didn't care about who looked and who didn't, because, really,

"I'm alright; better than I've been the whole week, in fact." His arm, wrapped around her shoulders, pulled her closer into him yet, his face burrowed in her hair as she stood stiff in his hold.

And this had been part of the reason why he hadn't said anything beforehand. Because he had had to wait; wait to grow, wait to mature a bit more until he could say anything. Wait until he was taller than her, wait till he was broader than her, wait until he was stronger, until he had the right to utter a word of what he wanted to scream to her and to the world.

A moment or so passed and then she finally moved, her dainty arms snaking around him in reciprocation, the tension long gone from her shoulders.

"After I found out I was to stay here only for a week, I thought I could surprise you… I even took off a day earlier than schedule. I'm sorry I made you worry…" she murmured softly in his ear as she stroked his hair in a placating manner.

He opened his mouth and took a breath because if it was now, he could most definitely say what was on his mind. But the words wouldn't come—he had never been one of the most eloquent of people and he often had difficulty clothing his thoughts in words.

So, instead, he opted to pull away from her just enough to be able to look into her eyes, twin pools of contagious calm and serenity.

She smiled up at him and he swiftly dissolved the distance between them again with only a slight difference this time.

He had captured her mouth for the lightest and most innocent of kisses, letting his action speak volumes of the things he could not put into sentences.

And as Tsubaki returned his kiss with matching fervour, Black Star decided that he'd have to postpone his revenge against Shinigami-sama for after he thanked the man for the firm shove in the right direction.

* * *

_A/N:_ Maybe it didn't come out quite right the way I wrote it, but the melodrama was because both Black Star and Tsubaki believed that Tsubaki's change of appointment was permanent. And perhaps you deciphered it in the narrative—in this ficlet I've introduced for your viewing pleasure "Shibusen Teacher Black Star", even though I'm not sure exactly what he is teaching. x3 Which is why he couldn't possibly have followed Tsubaki to her new post in the mainland—I decided to call Europe that, because I can and because it sounds cooler :D—thus why the melodrama in the beginning ensued.

It was difficult coming up with an interpretation for this prompt because no one has ever even considered coming between Black Star and Tsubaki but then this idea came to me and I thought, 'Why the hell not, sounds neat' and thus wrote this fic out. I'd love to hear what you thought of it. :3 Because I personally rather like it. x3

_Story written for LJ's "30 Kisses" prompt number __4__ – "__Our distance and that person__"._


	13. Berserker

_**Berserker**_

* * *

It's like they all saw it in slow motion, the ghastly tragedy of a nightmare gone real right before their very eyes.

Seeing the witch that had somehow—despite all odds—managed to infiltrate the very heart of Death City fire a most certainly malevolent-looking spell at Black Star who was too busy dealing with another witch to notice the oncoming danger and then Tsubaki jumping out of her weapon form and putting her own body between the blast's trajectory and her meister.

They watched with horrified expressions how their friend's unconscious—motionless, still, _dead_—body fell forward lifelessly and it was like the whole world slowed down, almost coming to a complete halt as she collapsed.

Breaths caught in throats and hearts hammered wildly against ribcages while people rushed to the young woman's side to check her vital signs… if she still had any, that was.

Only one person stood as though rooted to the spot while his partner received CPR from a frantic and almost reduced to hysterics Maka and an anxious-looking Soul giving her a heart massage.

He watched with eyes wide and muddled mind—thoughts flitted through his mind before becoming irretrievably lost along the way, never to be found again—as two of his best friends tried to the utmost of their capabilities to resuscitate the most important person in his life after she had taken a hit that had been intended for _him_…

Trying to resuscitate her quite fruitlessly, if the mounting desperation and anxiety on their faces were any indication.

That's about the time that he stopped thinking things that actually made sense to a sane person.

In hindsight, he reckoned that he might have lost his own consciousness to the tide of all-encompassing red even before her limp body hit the ground with a sickeningly loud thump.

* * *

The witch huffed, trying to get more oxygen in her lungs than her haste allowed her. She had just narrowly escaped those Shibusen brats and they were being really persistent—they were making the completion of her mission really difficult. If Medusa found out how much trouble she had with this, she'd be a goner…

Speaking of goners.

A wide sneer twisted her face.

"At least I got rid of one of them pests. That girl ought to never open her eyes again—and good riddance!" She cackled to herself as she crept around the shadows of the city.

"You think?" a low, scarily quiet voice startled her out of her wits while she was making her escape.

But worse yet, before she could even turn to look who it was that had erased their presence so completely to elude her magically superior awareness of her surroundings, something hard planted itself with merciless force in her back, sending her sprawling onto the street.

The ambushed witch barely had the time to jump to the side and flatten her (horribly bruised) back against a nearby building and whip her head frantically around to catch sight of her attacker when a foot slammed against her temple, and she winced while her body skidded against the sidewalk from the momentum of the hit.

Her self-defense instincts in combat dulled as pain settled in, her awareness of the situation fading in favour of her awareness for her physical condition.

She looked up in time while she was nursing her—surely, it was broken, if the horrible sting in it was any indication—bleeding nose to see a large shadow looming over her.

A primordial fear nestled itself within her very soul as she beheld the sight of her approaching assailant.

"You made a big mistake," the man, ever coming nearer her, said in a low tone that she'd have to strain to hear if it wasn't for the blood pulsing through her entire body in her adrenaline rush and enhancing her hearing. "You shouldn't have done that."

Her eyes widened and she shrunk back, making an attempt to turn around and crawl away from this psycho, give herself maybe some time to regroup and get back at him for doing this kind of atrocity to her face. But she didn't get the chance to do that, as when she was scurrying off his foot came down with mind-boggling force on her ankle, efficiently breaking it with a single stomp.

A blood-curdling screech tore from her throat when the excruciating pain settled in. She threw him a glare though tear-filled from the pain eyes but her glare was lost on her attacker's positively ruthless demeanour as he stepped closer to her. He looked like the type who might usually brag and taunt his prey but his eyes said it all, rending the need to say the words out loud meaningless: he wouldn't have her going anywhere.

Fear gripped her whole being as she dragged her useless leg in order to put some distance between herself and this maniac. Was he… Was he possibly the partner of that girl she'd just done in…?

Oh, hell, this wasn't going to end well…

She clawed away faster, her eyes never leaving his frame all the while.

Then she saw the tattoo on his bare shoulder and her heart sank.

Oh, God, this was really not her day…

She was loath to admit it but she really may have made a big mistake in picking whom to bully…

* * *

When the girl beneath her coughed up some blood and turned to her side in order not to choke herself with it, Maka breathed a sigh of relief, as did Soul across her. They had thought that they'd lost Tsubaki for good…

"Don't… _ever_… do that again, you hear?" Maka said to the girl who was still trying to get herself together. The auburn head's voice was quivering and her limbs were shaking but she helped the other female get up, and get her bearings about her. "You gave us the scare of a lifetime, Tsubaki-chan…"

The chain scythe girl gave a faltering smile—her face contorted in pain just as she attempted the smile, the muscles of her face contracting from spasms every now and then—as she pulled herself up to a sitting position with some help from her two friends. As she looked around and the situation sunk in her eyes widened in horror—as much as it was possible, as her eyelids were horribly swollen.

"W-…" she tried, but her voice was scratchy and talking proved to be too much of a challenge. She pushed on regardless. "Wh—ere i-is… Black… Star?" she asked her friends, looking pleadingly from one to the other, fearing that she might not have been successful in her attempt to shield him from that bloody witch.

The glance Maka and Soul exchanged made her heart clench.

* * *

The witch was close to tears as her assailant neared her. To think that she'd land herself on the last surviving member of the notorious Star clan… She definitely had no luck today.

And he definitely didn't look at all pleased with her choice in victim.

She was busy scurrying away backwards, making sure she kept him under her close scrutiny so he couldn't do anything that caught her off-guard but he still succeeded in catching her unawares as his movement had been too quick for her eyes to see. He'd grabbed her by the neck and pulled her up by that grip. Being a head or two taller than her, when he extended his arm with her throat in his hold, her feet dangled helplessly above the ground.

Her air supply cut and having herself disarmed a while ago, all she could do was scratch and pull at the fingers of his hand that was holding her up. But she halted even that when he fixed her with his gaze, tilting his head just enough to let the light illuminate his face.

His features were distorted in a look that screamed insanity from a mile away and his eyes held small stars instead of pupils in them.

If she'd had the breath to, she would've whimpered at the positively feral and evil look he was fixing her with and the way it was amplified by the play of shadows on his face. But as it was, all she could do was flail with her still good limbs. Though that didn't seem to achieve anything…

Black Star's brow twitched and he threw her with all his force into a nearby wall, his lips twisting in a malevolent smile when he heard a loud crack and the witch's low gasp of pain. He stepped closer to her then, giving her the chance to savour the fact that if she didn't see him there with her own imbecilic eyes she wouldn't even know he was there, savour the feeling of superiority, of having control over her petty, dispensable life that was more worthless than an ant's to the world…!

How he ached to crush her puny skull beneath his foot, hear the heavenly music of her pitiful head crunching beneath him…!

Then she made another attempt at escaping. His cheek muscle twitched. He wouldn't have that—he wasn't nearly done with her. Oh, how much more he had planned for this wench…

Just as she was clawing away with all her might, he caught her by the ankle he had crushed to bits and she wailed in anguish. A positively evil grin spread on his face—this was music to his ears. He wanted to hear her scream more, feel even more pain, have her feel her whole consciousness smothered by the excruciating pain…!

He grabbed her by a fistful of the collar of her moronic witch outfit this time, sneering at the sight of her. She pissed him off. Looking at her sorry expression ticked him off on a level deeper than he was capable of realizing at that moment of instinct-driven insanity.

So he acted on instinct, slamming his forehead against her face, making her scream in a mixture of surprise and pain as a trickle of her filthy blood oozed out from the place of impact.

He glared at the pitiful sight she made as he let her go, but before she could crumple on the ground, he slammed his knee with all the impressive force he had into her solar plexus, robbing her of her breath and sending her sprawling across the street again.

She writhed on the ground for a while, desperately trying to take in a gulp of air but incapable to do so from the shock of the hit. When she finally filled her lungs with air, she gasped and panted, choking on the blood in her mouth and the crimson trail trickling down her brow getting in her eye and blurring her vision.

She tried to pluck all the strength she had left in her body and drag herself towards some place safer from this lunatic—did that kind of place even _exist_?—but just as she was doing so, something collided with the tiles of the sidewalk just to the side of her head, making said tiles practically explode.

Her lower lip trembled in horror as she beheld the damage and she turned her head around slowly only to end up almost face to face with her worst nightmare in the flesh, his malignant, wicked grin scaring her to her very soul.

He then told her in a very low, even tone that made her skin crawl,

"This is the part where you are supposed to scream."

* * *

Maka shrunk back at the inhuman shriek of pain the witch Black Star was dealing with released. She looked at Soul with her brow furrowed in concern and found him to be just as unnerved at their mutual friend's behaviour.

"I'm scared, Soul," the auburn haired girl told her weapon partner, her hands fisting around the hem of her pleated skirt.

Soul did his best at a reassuring smile.

"Don't worry, Maka—Black Star made enough of a ruckus to scare off all the other witches – they're sounding retreat."

The girl shook her head slowly, biting on her bottom lip in her worry.

"It's not… the witches I'm scared from, Soul…" Her eyes followed apprehensively every move of her fellow meister on the far end of the street, a soul-scare deeper than any other she'd ever felt before in the numerous battles she'd fought gripping her whole being.

This kind of Black Star… He'd reverted to a complete frenzy since he'd seen Tsubaki get hurt. He was supposed to go out of control but instead his instincts seemed to have sharpened and she could truly believe that adhering to the laws of assassination was as easy as breathing to him, because he was incapable of thinking anything rational at that point and yet he executed all three laws so flawlessly.

And in his berserk he'd come to bear such a lust for blood and pain… Maka couldn't help but shudder. This kind of Black Star, emanating such an overwhelmingly vicious aura scared her beyond belief.

Was that even the same boisterous, obnoxious but kind in his own way boy that she'd known practically her whole life? It was inconceivable at current time for her.

She had been so tightly wound that when Soul placed a hand on her shoulder softly, she almost jumped out of her skin. She'd just been about to admonish him for startling her when he fixed her with his wide-eyed slack-jawed expression. If she didn't know any better, she'd say he looked panicked.

"Maka… where's Tsubaki?"

That was when it was Maka's turn to panic.

* * *

He'd all but beaten the life out of the witch.

He felt filthy, his fists and clothes coated with her disgusting blood. She'd tried clawing at his eyes a little while ago and he'd kicked her so hard he had been wondering whether it hadn't been lethal until she'd tried sneaking away again. He'd barely stifled a snort at her foolishness—did she really still believe she'd get out of this alive?

After what she'd done to Tsubaki?

The insane grin took over his face again as he pulled her back by the broken ankle, making her squirm and scream in his grasp.

He raised his arm while she quieted beneath him, sensing that the end was near. She was probably at the limit of her pain tolerance and she'd pass out any second now. And that wouldn't be fun—better to take her out of commission himself before she could spoil his fun.

He raised his hand which crackled with the intensity of the amount of his soul wavelength that he'd put into it—his normally powerful wave now amplified by his frenzy.

This bastardly bitch wouldn't live to see another day. She'd robbed his partner of that chance, so why should _she_ have it? She didn't deserve it.

He'd been about to bring his palm down on her and fry her whole system when something soft and frail circled his waist with a languid, calm movement. He looked down quick to see that it was an arm just as another was placed in a placating manner on his raised arm's shoulder.

He turned partially around to look over his shoulder and thought he might be seeing things but at least now it was comprehensible how _anyone_ could've come close to him without his senses sounding the alarm for him for having anyone in his vicinity when he'd gone completely berserk.

She breathed a quiet sigh of relief as she clung to him, resting her forehead against the shoulder she wasn't holding down.

"It's… alright… Black Star…" she murmured, just barely above a whisper. "I'm… alright. …Please… calm down…"

It seemed that even saying just that much had taken everything out of her. She was just about to collapse from the effort, so she clung even closer to him. She noted absent-mindedly that he had discharged the wavelength from his palm and that his hand hung limply to his side.

She sighed through her nose against him, a sense of relief overcoming her and successfully robbing her of the last of her strength.

Maka and Soul arrived just in time to see one of the most mind-boggling of sights in their entire lives. The witch had crawled away just far enough from the pair not to be immediately spotted before she'd passed out from blood loss and pain, while to the side a very badly injured Tsubaki was holding onto Black Star who had his back facing them.

The Death Scythe and his technician exchanged a look. The vicious aura was no longer coming off their friend in waves and it seemed like the situation was more or less under control. Not to mention, his mad rampage had scared off all the other witches into retreating, and back-up was sure to come soon.

Still, they were decided on approaching the duo with caution.

Tsubaki cracked open her eyes tiredly. She hadn't wanted to let her meister do something he would later regret, so she'd just had to stop him, whatever it cost her.

And, considering the amount and intensity of the pain she could detect with her dulled mind, it hadn't been much—a rib or two and probably a few bones here and there. A price she would gladly pay any day for his sake.

Black Star's whole body was shaken by tremours beneath her and despite the stinging sensation in pretty much every spot on her body, she felt her being permeated by warmth at having someone who meant so much to her so worried about her.

"I'm alright… It's going to be… okay now…" she promised him quietly while her grip on him slipped, with her fingers uncurling from their hold on his frame.

Just before she slid into unconsciousness and he gathered her up in his arms just in time to break her fall, she looked at his face and his clear, emerald eyes that she so adored and felt that things were really going to be alright now.

* * *

_A/N:_ Chapter inspired by Alesana's "This is Usually the Part where People Scream". "This is the part where you are supposed to scream" part was so catchy that my mind came up with a scenario where I could use it. xD You should hear it – priceless song. It was my fuel while writing the greater part of this story. Oh, and also—I just had to have a story where Tsubaki stops Black Star from going too evil on someone and regretting it later. :D I hope you enjoyed~ x3 Remember that reviews make for a happy author and a happy author is a more productive author~


	14. Set Beta: Rhythm of the Soul

_Written for Theme Set __Beta__ for the 1sentence LJ Community. _As always, opinions and constructive criticism are encouraged.

* * *

_#04 – Wonder__;_

Tsubaki remembers well the evening when her friends asked her what she would've done if Black Star had been a girl instead of a man; she remembers in even more explicit detail their totally flabbergasted expressions (and Black Star's peals of amused laughter) when she'd claimed she would've probably gone gay for that girl.

_#02 – Waltz;_

When they are asked to do a waltz on their graduation ceremony, Tsubaki stepped closer to him nervously, convinced this would definitely not end well; however, when he twirls her around with grace and elegance to be envied realization about what he'd been so busy "training" for recently dawned on her and she was grateful for his firm hold on her because otherwise her knees might have given out from beneath her.

_#27 – Jester;_

He's thought of by his peers as the class clown, the perpetual jester and, while a small part of her dislikes the unjust untruthfulness of such a notion, she prefers they keep holding onto that misconception of his character; she likes being the only one to know how deep his conviction and drive ran, and how much more there was to him than he let others see.

_#21 – Quiet;_

Quiet had been a luxury that Tsubaki had had to give up early on after partnering up with someone as peppy and energetic as Black Star; it had seemed like a real pain at first but it wasn't long before she'd completely forgotten there had a been a time when she'd needed such a trifle thing as quiet.

_#24 – Quarrel;_

They rarely ever quarrel and when they do she usually backs down first; when he tries to charge headfirst into escapades that would surely endanger his life and she opposes him though, she never backs down, even though the notion of him being mad at her horrifies her—because losing him over something she could've prevented if she'd exerted just a tiny bit of common sense horrifies her even more.

_#25 – Quitting;_

He'd set such difficult goals for himself—they'd require a lot of strength, consistency and presence of character—and she finds it so admirable that no matter what happens to make those goals seem impossible at one time or another, quitting never becomes an option for him; she watches on in awe as he pursues his dreams and hopes that some day she will become someone who never considers quitting as an option no matter how desperate the times appear to be as well.

_#09 – War;_

He's promised Mifune that he'll become a bushin, and he's announced to practically the entire world that he will surpass God; as she watches him—all sinewy muscle on a towering, lean frame that he's grown into over the years—from the side, his clothes ragged from the skirmishes and his fringe matted to his forehead with blood but his eyes just as razor-sharp and burning with concentration as if the hours of struggle to overpower the enemy had been mere seconds to him, she thinks for the first time that maybe if it's Black Star, even conquering Heaven might not be impossible a task.

_#13 – Bias;_

She disapproves vocally about people's unreasonable prejudice against Black Star just because he'd had the misfortune of being born in a family of murderers, how biased they are without even knowing him at all and renounces their bigotry; but when she considers things in all earnestness she realizes that perhaps she shouldn't be the one criticizing people's lack of objectivity when her opinion of the man isn't at all impartial either.

_#17 – Belief;_

Tsubaki had always believed that should anything happen to Black Star she wouldn't be able to stand again on her own while he would have little difficulty getting back on his feet should anything happen to her; when he goes berserk and nearly kills in his frenzy the backstabbing witch informant of Shibusen when she makes an attempt on Tsubaki's life, the young Death Scythe feels her heart elated by the realization that even if he _could_ survive without her, he'd rather he didn't.

_#33 – Stupidity;_

His consistent perfect failing of tests and his overall attitude has everyone convinced with unrivaled certainty that he is a complete, hopeless moron; if they bothered to notice how masterfully he handled otherwise impasse situations and turn the tables around on his attackers, they'd realize just where this boy's smarts lied.

_#45 – Natural;_

It isn't within her area of expertise so she doesn't know just how skilled he really is compared to others but when he kisses her for the first time it feels as if his kiss wipes her mind completely blank, like polishing a slate perfectly clean; she asks—grudgingly, tentatively, apprehensively—how he'd become that good and he laughs merrily—having felt her dread at his possible answer—and tells her that he must be a natural at making her feel good and successfully, naturally, appeases all of her worries.

_#35 – Sarcasm;_

Maka can't help raising an eyebrow when as Soul says in a heavily sarcastic tone, "Yeah, Black Star, because you've been at it ever since you found you could get it up," implying that the addressed youth had never been laid in his life, a certain azure-haired assassin's face splits into a huge, shit-eating grin and his partner almost—but not quite—turns her head in time to hide a blush that dusts her cheeks.

_#18 – Balloon;_

She barely manages to stifle her laughter when she presents him with a condom and he eyes it dubiously, asking her if it was some weird new kind of balloon or something.

_#43 – Nuance;_

He has been called many names in his time and yet his closest person is the one who never calls him by any other but his own; he never fails to be amazed by how different one and the same thing can sound when she loads it with different feelings and connotations and he has learnt since long to recognize the slight, barely discernible by any other than his sensitive hearing nuances that she places in the way she calls out his name.

_#01 – Walking;_

Tsubaki thinks it's normal for girls to recognize their loved ones' faces and voices and silhouettes in the distance but she takes that a bit further—she can even recognize Black Star by his walk; his is a wide-stride heavy-footed strut that one could recognize anywhere, any time because each and every stride he took was permeated with confidence, power and all that was perfectly and uniquely _Black Star_.

_#34 – Serenade;_

When she claimed he didn't have a romantic bone in his entire body, it took him a while to come up with it but one day—long after she'd told him that—he decided to make a serenade for her, under their balcony; his off-key singing made stray dogs howl and homeless cats mewl in agony, normal people cringe in their sleep or be roused from it with curses but to Tsubaki it was the most touching gesture she'd ever received (incapability to sing aside).

_#05 – Worry;_

She was a worry-wart, therefore having her fret over her loved ones' well-being isn't news at all; however, when she gets hit by stray shrapnel from a car-crash and she's taken to the hospital for a few hours to make sure she was truly alright, she's taken slightly aback by the frantic look on Black Star's face when he bursts through the double-doors of the hospital, with several nurses trying to placate him ("This is a _hospital,_ sir! You can't barge in like this! There are people resting here!") and deter him from his path ("What business do you have here, young man? Visiting hours haven't even begun!"), and as he scans her over for any injuries and keeps asking her if she's alright she thinks that it's sort of comforting to be on the receiving end of someone's worry for a change.

_#11 – Birthday; _

Black Star is a big man—the biggest there is, in fact—which is why he's never regarded his birthday as anything more than the Earth completing a full circle around the Sun yet again since the time he first wailed his way into the world as a rising star, so he doesn't reckon it necessary to answer Tsubaki when she asks when his birthday is; when she throws him a grand party, inviting all of their friends and making sure he has the time of his life because she was convinced this day was special, he makes a point of letting her know which day it truly is—in case, y'know, she decided to repeat the experience the next year…

_#36 – Sordid;_

After a tough fight she always complains how filthy she is and how she can't stand being in her own skin and just how badly she needs a shower; Black Star begs to differ—he is firmly of the opinion that nothing could ever make her look anything less than mind-numbingly beautiful (not that he'd tell her those thoughts of his out loud—he was too big a man to flatter so shamelessly).

_#07 – Waste/Wasteland;_

During one of their missions she goes to see the Star clan's last stand—now only a barren wasteland in the middle of nowhere—and for the first – and probably last – time in her entire life she can't find it in herself to feel anything else but gratitude at the sight before her eyes because it is the Star clan's disregard for morality that brought Black Star in her life, one way or another, and she imagines that if that hadn't happened, it would have been her inner world that would look like this wasteland, without the vitalizing presence of the boy.

_#46 – Horizon;_

She reckons he's really much like the horizon – you can never really lose sight of it—only stop minding it for a while,—there for everyone to behold, yet different people perceive it differently according to their own beliefs, and always just out of reach, no matter how much you chase after it.

_#08 – Whiskey and Rum;_

It takes only one night of partying out with the guys for the whole group to understand why Tsubaki never drank – she couldn't hold her liquor at all; so it's up to the only slightly tipsy Black Star to take his partner home, as he had decided after his fifth or sixth—he'd lost count after a while—shot glass of tequila that the notion of staying and letting Tsubaki give people a bit too much of an eyeful of herself to remember her by when they were sober (she had claimed that she was boiling, even in her flimsy, almost see-through top and attempted to take it off before he'd wrestled her hands into dissuasion) definitely didn't sit well with him.

_#20 – Bane;_

He's been considered the bane of pretty much everyone's existence—where from annoyance, where from malice over sins he had never even committed in the first place—but it is only when she tells him that he's the best thing that ever happened in her life that he thinks that maybe he wasn't as much of a menace as everyone made him out to be.

_#10 – Weddings;_

When she was a little girl, she used to yearn for a Prince Charming who was also her knight in shining armour and a beautiful Western-style wedding, with lots of flowers and beauty and smiles; then she grew up and met Black Star and realized that all those things didn't matter and that love didn't need wedlock to be true or announced to the world.

_#16 – Breaking;_

It's twilight out and they've trained till they dropped that day and she's so tired that she can't mind her footing, so when she trips over a loose tile on the road he's the only thing that keeps her from sprawling herself shamefully all over the sidewalk; "Don't fall, Tsubaki!" he says jokingly, with a grin in his voice and a light tone and as she looks bashfully up at him she thinks that it's a bit too late for that warning (because she's known she's already fallen for him for a long time now).

_#32 – Sorrow;_

She's a cheerful person usually so it feels so alien to him when after the death of her brother she can't even find the strength to smile on her own; that's about the time he found out that he never wanted to see her wear that sorrowful expression ever again and that he'd do everything in his impressive power to keep her from coming to any harm ever again.

_#15 – Breathing;_

Breathing is an involuntary reflex that everyone acquires since the moment of their conceiving – it was just one of those things you _know_ though you can never pinpoint the exact moment you came to bear knowledge of them, one that you learned to control a bit better later in life to suit your needs and your situation; she'd never given it much thought before that moment, and Tsubaki realizes just how difficult breathing actually is when she can't remember how to do it when he's so _close, close, close_, just a breath away from her face and she can't look away from his mesmerizing gaze of molten passion that steals the breath right out of her lungs.

_#26 – Jump;_

She has been taught to look before she leaps but ever since partnering up with Black Star she can't help but think that everyone who always took precautions and made sure that everything went according to a premade plan was missing out on some of the wonders in life that came with doing things just because you could, without any previous planning or consideration.

_#42 – Neutral;_

He never cared about the arguments of others or how heated they became because others' confrontations seemed childish to him in the first place, unbecoming of his big self; he could never stay neutral even in the face of the pettiest of squabbles when his partner's well-being was put at risk though.

_#19 – Balcony;_

He had an affinity for high places—being the star that he was—so he immediately took to the balcony but it wasn't until he realized that from its vantage point he could see her when she returned home with her hands full with groceries, humming a tune to herself and carrying a bright smile on her face as she let herself in their living building that he knew what the true advantages of having a balcony overlooking the street was.

_#03 – Wishes;_

When he has another vicious fight with Maka and she reproaches him for his attitude towards the female meister, Tsubaki tells him of her hope that all her friends could just get along well and that everyone can just smile happily together; he snorts and turns away from her, telling her in a bitter tone that it's naïve wishful thinking on her part to actually believe such a thing could happen and it would be a lie to say that him pointing that out didn't sting a little but she does notice that the next time he and Maka come to a confrontation, he makes a bit of effort not to make matters too much worse than they already are and to avoid having things turn out too ugly.

_#29 – Jewel;_

They keep saying that she's a diamond in the rough, a very talented shape-shifting weapon and that he hinders her from her full potential, that he doesn't appreciate how much he lucked out having her as his partner; he ignores their blabber, deeming it unworthy of his greatness—he sees no need to show to anyone else how well he realized how fortunate he was for having her, not only as his partner in school but as his support outside it as well and that he believed their labeling her as a mere earthly jewel was demeaning to her actual potential.

_#37 – Soliloquy;_

He was so used to going off on tangents about his greatness and people rolling their eyes and mostly ignoring what he said (what did _they_ understand anyway? Small folk had little to no sense at all) that he couldn't help being taken a little aback when she claps at the end of his soliloquy the first time they met—he knew even before he'd talked to her that same minute that she'd definitely be someone who understood just how big he actually was… and that from then onwards there would always be at least _one_ person who listened raptly to his monologues about greatness.

_#22 – Quirks;_

He was quite the quirky person—she'd known that from the moment she'd met him—and some of them were weirder than others (he always referred to himself in a high and mighty way; he spun on the spot hoping to change the world's axis; and the list went on and on), but she'd never considered those quirks of him anything less than endearing and a part of what made him uniquely him.

_#28 – Jousting;_

Sometimes she thought he believed that life was all about competition and coming out on top of everything and that he was jousting in an endless tournament, always giving everything a hundred and twenty percent of his capability and effort, always trying his hardest at everything he did; she told him she believed it was probably exhausting, to always be like that and to always strain himself for everything but secretly she hoped that by being his partner, maybe that competitiveness of his might rub off on her some as well.

_#38 – Sojourn;_

The apartment they had been given by Shibusen upon enrolling had been supposed to be a temporary measure, only until he succeeded in turning her into a Death Scythe and their partnership ended, allowing them to go their separate ways and follow their own paths but it turned out that only the location had been temporary, not the entwining of their fates.

_#40 – Solitary;_

He'd been so used to living on his own that the first few weeks of moving in with Tsubaki were really difficult on the girl, having little to no space left for her things and almost always being forgotten or left behind as he walked at his own pace, paying little to no heed whether she was keeping up or not—she'd told herself at that time that it's only normal, that he'd grown up alone and isn't used to having anyone there with him but she feels too overwhelming a sense of relief and happiness when he starts slowing his step to keep pace with her and going with her to the grocery store for her earlier self-assurances to have been truly convincing.

_#30 – Just;_

She should've voiced her qualms about living together with him when she'd been told they were to share an apartment but she pushed the issue to the back of her mind, telling herself that he was just a boy, not even an adolescent yet; but a voice in the back of her mind told her that she was just making excuses, that she should realize fully well that the boy would grow up and become a man and by then she would be in way over her head, and then lines could become blurred and crossed without either of them even noticing…

_#49 – Victory;_

When she finally gets her bearings after swallowing the last soul to become a Death Scythe—that of a malicious witch they had spent almost a week hunting down—he gives her his trademark toothy grin and a victory sign; she reluctantly reciprocates because she can't help but wonder now that they had fulfilled their purpose as a Shibusen team what would become of them… and it's those same ponderings that embitter the taste of their victory in her mouth.

_#41 – Nowhere;_

He keeps asking her about it—he's always been good at reading her mood swings that she tried so hard to hide—so she finally tells him what's bothering her, her voice shaky and her fingers trembling in her lap as she does so; he catches her unawares when he laughs at her worries and she's about to feel insulted when he tells her he isn't going anywhere without her unless that's what she wanted and that he'll talk with Shinigami-sama the next day about it too and that he's sure the Reaper will understand—she can't help the beaming smile that dawns on her face afterwards, for the calm his words (his _promise_) had instilled in her needed an outlet.

_#06 – Whimsy;_

A lot of things were just a game to him and if he had to be absolutely frank maybe the first time he kissed her he did so on a whim – just because he _could_ – but the feelings the whimsical action incited felt like anything but a game to him; by default, he always bowed out of too serious conversations and engagements of any sort before he could get in too deep but when she kissed him back retreat didn't even cross his mind for a second and he thanked his lucky stars for his whimsical nature because who knew how long it would've taken the two of them to get to this if not for what began as a fleeting whimsy of a kiss.

_#23 – Question;_

She pulls away with a small gasp, her breath hitching in her throat when he shifts his lips to lavishing the column of her neck with open-mouthed passionate kisses and she barely finds the mental coherency and air in her lungs to ask what's been on her mind for a while—"Does this mean we're… together now? I mean, … like an actual… couple?"—and he laughs lightly at her query because one look at their half-naked bodies and the way they were tangled together should've been answer enough for her, and if not, he made sure to convey through his next actions his answer to her rather silly question.

_#39 – Share;_

It took spending about less than half an hour in his company to figure out that Black Star was a possessive person by nature—sharing had never really been his thing—so it didn't come as much of a surprise when he was endlessly irked by some no-name moron who had the gall to try to hit on his girl when he thought he wasn't paying attention and thus made the assassin reassert before this thoughtless imbecile that she was _his_ and therefore off-limits to such puny creatures as him; no, what was surprising was that Tsubaki didn't seem to mind her significant other's forceful behaviour and actually appeared somewhat flattered by his outright possessiveness—perhaps any other girl would be insulted by such treatment, take it as limiting her personal freedoms or some other nonsense of the sort but to Tsubaki it was affirmation that she was someone truly important to him.

_#14 – Burning;_

She thinks she knows what it feels like to have your skin burnt when she's scorched by the flames of a fire-using witch during a mission; she finds out she'd known nothing about it after all when ever-engulfing flames spread from the point where his lips have touched her sensitive flesh to envelop her whole being in an ardent blazing fire that makes her lose her breath and scatters her mind and casts her coherency away.

_#47 – Valiant;_

His voice is too loud to be noble and his demeanour is too silly to be cool and she's long since given up on her childish notions that one day she'd meet her Prince Charming who'd be her knight in shining armour at times of strife, and she's made her peace with it all but it's the times when he saves her from the messes she infallibly lets herself get into that she can't help but notice that maybe her evaluations of his character are premature and too hasty because maybe, just maybe, he did have the valour it took to be a hero—_her_ hero.

_#31 – Smirk;_

She's known him for what feels like a lifetime and she's always known what that sly smirk meant when she saw it—it meant he was up to no good and that he'd definitely do something that would make her wish she could say she'd had nothing to do with that idea; when they get together, the smirk acquires yet another meaning but the fact it makes her blush an even deeper shade of red than before does not change—she'd never known that such a large array of kinky thoughts could be hidden behind a single facial expression.

_#12 – Blessing;_

When after the anniversary of their first year spent together as a couple he says he wants to visit her folks because he has something he wants to talk to her father about, she has no clue about how old-fashioned he is being because he won't tell her he wants to go to the Nakatsukasas to ask her father for his blessing of their relationship before he's received it.

_#48 – Virtuous;_

She's been called virtuous by many people, enough to have made her believe that perhaps they could be right; she doesn't think she's any less virtuous after he's taken her innocence though, because regardless of what some religions may say she doesn't believe that virtue was something so superficial that it can be lost over being in love with a man.

_#50 – Defeat;_

Black Star is too willful of a guy to let himself become a victim to any losing streak for long; he reckons that the only person who's ever defeated him—and not even in the physical way—was Tsubaki, because she let herself in his heart without even asking permission first and before he knew it, it was already too late to change that – he had already lost to her charm and kind-hearted spirit… and that was the only battle in his life that he was infinitely glad had been his defeat from the very start.

_#44 – Near;_

It's only when they're so near one another, their limbs in a tangle and their heartbeats racing in a resonating rhythm that makes the heat between them escalate, that who they really are comes to light because that's when all pretenses fade to the background, all childish notions are left behind and all insecurities trampled—simply because being so near makes them realize that nothing waiting up ahead for them could be too bad as long as the other is at their side.

* * *

_Finis_

* * *


	15. Kiss 03: Public Display of Affection

A word before you begin to read: don't be thrown off by the myriad of unknown (original) characters. The point of the story is to show the pairing from an onlooker's point of view. I'm sure that if you give this a chance, you'd at least be amused by their antics.

* * *

_**Public Display of Affection**_

* * *

The bell rang loudly throughout the quiet school hallways, bringing the end of class to the attention of its inhabitants.

And every time recess came, Black Star couldn't help but wonder why there was such a large collective sigh in his class whenever they heard the bell ring. It wasn't as if he was working them too hard, was he?

"Ahh, when is today going to end?" an auburn headed girl groaned while she prostrated herself across her desk.

"It feels as if we've been here a year instead of just a couple of hours, doesn't it, Natsu?" a raven-haired girl sighed to the other's side, resting her chin on the desk and staring with a vacant gaze ahead at nothing in particular. Then she quite suddenly perked up to attentiveness. "Hey, who's that? I've never seen her around before."

Her friend and the boy on Natsuki's other side followed the path of her gaze to find a woman making her way across the room and towards their seated teacher with a calm smile spread out on her amiable face.

She had a slim build, a tall frame and the curves of her body so well-defined she had to be at least several years their senior. Was she a student there? She didn't seem like it and by the way she talked so familiarly with their teacher, it wasn't hard to tell it wasn't their first time meeting one another.

The black-haired boy to the auburn head's side huffed, his interest no longer lingering on the newly arrived individual.

"Moron – that's one of the Death Scythes resident in Shibusen. Shouldn't you know at least that much before you apply here? Seriously…"

"What did you call me?!" Her friend fumed, shaking a fist in the direction of the unperturbed—and completely disinterested—young man's direction while Natsu eyed her partner levelly.

She was always somewhat surprised how well-informed he was, even though he didn't give off the vibe of being someone who cared about these kinds of things.

"I've let your smart-ass remarks slide one time too many it seems, because you've really gone ahead of yourself, Shin—now you've _really_ made me mad!" the raven-haired girl hissed out malignantly, rolling up her sleeves threateningly. The recipient of her wrath wasn't fazed—he didn't even deem her worthy of his attention.

While Natsuki tried to placate her friend and dissuade her from dismembering her partner limb from limb, a boy on the front row turned in his seat, adjusting his glasses on the bridge of his nose as he regarded the trio.

"Indeed that person is one of the two Death Scythes that have a permanent residence in Death City! She's Tsubaki Death Scythe-sama, the Death Scythe that Black Star-sensei created." The boy's curious piece of information succeeded in attracting the two girls' attention to him, quite easily chasing away any thought of murder from the brunette's mind.

Shin felt a stab of annoyance as he looked at the nosy boy—he didn't remember asking his opinion on the matter.

"Wow! That's so awesome! I didn't know that the Death Scythe sensei made was still on Shibusen grounds!"

Natsuki turned her gaze to the pair at the front of the class, standing together in the center of the room, talking in visibly friendly tones and wearing smiles on their faces as they exchanged words about who knows what. The girl cocked her head to the side as she looked at Black Star—had he always had such a gentle look in his eyes?

Their informant chuckled to himself.

"She has become somewhat of a legend, really—that Tsubaki-sama." He adjusted his spectacles on the bridge of his nose again, and this time it was really more of a tic than anything else. "It is said that it took her and sensei's team the longest to gather the hundred souls. But that didn't matter after they managed to take down the witch queen and took Mabaa's soul to complete Tsubaki-sama's transformation into a Death Scythe."

The girls gaped slightly in awe.

"It was sensei and his partner that took down Mabaa in that raid?" the ebony-haired female muttered, a note of newfound pride in being the student of the same person who'd achieved such an incredible feat creeping into her tone. "Whoa, I knew sensei was awesome, but I never knew just _how_ awesome he was."

As if he had heard them, Black Star roared in laughter in that typical manner of his at something his partner had told him, successfully rallying the attention of the entire class that was still in the room to himself and his companion.

The previously gossiping trio looked on as their teacher explained with lots of gesturing and a wide grin showing rows of pearly white teeth something to his counterpart. The young woman listened raptly with a serene smile on her face as she regarded her former meister.

"She has such a calm countenance and soothing presence—it's really hard to believe she's fit for fighting," Natsuki said as if to herself, making her partner languidly shift his calculating gaze to her.

"I guess that's what they mean when they say that looks can be deceiving – Tsubaki Death Scythe-sama is currently the strongest Death Scythe in existence," the bespectacled boy muttered to his companions.

And looks were truly quite deceiving because Natsuki couldn't even wrap her mind around the idea that such a sweet, soft-spoken lady was capable of even conceiving the notion of hurting somebody, not to mention outright attacking.

Her teacher and his former partner talked so comfortably with one another and the air around them was so tranquil and homely that, as she observed them, Natsuki thought that they probably had completely forgotten all about the world around them, enclosed in a cozy bubble and a world of their own.

The genuine care and gentleness in Black Star's eyes as he looked and conversed with his schooldays partner and the affection emanating from the Death Scythe's smile made Natsuki feel that it was improper to stare, as if doing so would be intrusion of an unspoken moment of intimacy between her sensei and his friend.

And then, just like that, in front of the incredulous gazes of a roomful of students, Black Star pulled Tsubaki unceremoniously towards himself by her arm for a kiss, his free hand on her cheek, holding her close and obscuring their locked lips from prying eyes.

It felt as if the whole class had become one single entity when there was a collective gasp in the room, followed by many pairs of eyes widening in disbelief.

The boys and girls he spent every day with and taught with a passion unrivaled had never seen their teacher in such a situation before—he hadn't as much as uttered a word about love interest or a significant other.

When he'd become their homeroom teacher in the beginning of the year and the girls had asked him whether he had a girlfriend, he had only smiled impishly and said cryptically, "Ah, well, who knows?…"

His students had quickly learnt that he was a bold, determined individual who always knew what he wanted and always found the means to achieve his goals.

And yet claiming that his current actions were simply bold would be a grave understatement.

At first when she was pulled into the embrace, Tsubaki's eyes darted frantically towards the staring class and she struggled against her holder, pushing against his chest to pry herself away and then, possibly, run and hide.

But after a—remarkably short—while she stopped resisting and chose instead to respond to the kiss, her dainty hands that had not a minute ago pushed away now clutching closely at the fabric of his shirt.

When they parted for air—Black Star grinning wolfishly, licking his lips and Tsubaki robbed of her breath and flushed in the face—the protective bubble that had encased them and sealed them off in a world of their own burst and they felt the full weight of the scrutiny of the students, staring unblinkingly at the pair of them in the center of attention.

The Death Scythe seemed to be the only one embarrassed though, as the teacher's grin only widened while his partner muttered something incoherent—her face a colour that could put a tomato to shame—as she scrambled out of the classroom full of gazes that were pinned to her.

But she didn't make her exit fast enough to miss her partner calling out to her,

"Don't hesitate to drop by again soon—we'll take it from where we left off!"

Black Star had always been well-known for being a tease, but after his last words Tsubaki wasn't the only girl embarrassed.

* * *

_A/N:_ Because this popped up in my mind and because I thought it might be amusing to look at the Black Star/Tsubaki dynamics from an ignorant onlooker's point of view. I also wanted to play around some more with the notion of Black Star as a teacher, and thus this fic. I think—despite his silliness—he'd make a good mentor when he tries and after he's matured a bit.

Also, I have an honest to God lemon entry for my "30 Lemons" challenge over here and I was wondering whether or not to let you guys have a taste of the none too graphical content. Let me know. :3

_Story written for LJ's "30 Kisses" prompt number __8__ – "__our own world__"._


	16. Wet Nightmare

**Warning:** Only mature readers should proceed, for adult situations and nudity lay ahead.

* * *

_**Wet Nightmare**_

* * *

Her head was muddled and her thoughts were coming to her as though through a very thick mist that obscured her garbled mind. She couldn't see very well and there was something wrong with her usually incredibly sharp hearing because she couldn't make out anything clearly but the strong thumping of her blood rushing in her ears.

And yet somehow she managed to register that the sharp intakes of breath and the ragged breathing that filled the otherwise still and quite dark room were coming from her.

She was gasping and her back was arching this way and that while a pair of large, somewhat familiar hands were fondling her full, round breasts. The man that was touching her whom she could not see because he was holding her from behind had a presence that soothed her, a presence that was very familiar and yet she could not quite place.

Which made very puzzling the fact that she was allowing him such freedom over her body. But she couldn't exactly help herself – as much as the rest of her senses were confused and going haywire, her sense of touch was very acute and she felt each lingering touch of his over her skin as though it left a trace of flame behind.

His hands were under her shirt, gently squeezing her breasts in a hypnotizing rhythm with a grip so addictive and precision so fine she couldn't help the pleasured moans and groans that escaped her whilst his attentions towards her. She felt his smirk against her neck while he groped her, nimble fingers undoing her bra and skin finally coming in direct contact with skin.

The skin on his hands was rough and worn from use but the crudeness of the contact made her all the more eager to have more of it. His fingers massaged the mounds of sensitive flesh in his hold, pinching and tweaking an erect nipple every now and then, eliciting a delightful hiss from his companion.

Whatever tiny bit of her mind had been trying to figure out what the hell was going on here was now kept busy with much more pleasurable activities – like drowning in the pools of molten desire that welled in her stomach – while her lover kissed, nipped and licked at the column of her neck.

She didn't pay much heed to the hand that started traveling south, over the plane of her smooth, flat belly – too engrossed with the feeling of him over her chest – until a finger brushed over the underside of her panties, between her spread legs. A startled gasp escaped her and her hips bucked against the newly come hand as though of their own volition.

She heard a pleased impish chuckle at her earlobe – her holder was probably endlessly amused with the reaction his actions were receiving. She didn't have time to consider that for long though because his mouth was over the sensitive shell of her ear the next moment and the hand that had only brushed against her sex now cupped her securely through the quite damp fabric of her undergarment, fingers kneading her folds like a happy cat.

She gasped and threw her head back, resting her upper body against the man's much larger and broader frame, her breathing coming out in hitches and laced with the lust that was seizing every cell of her body. She groaned loudly when the massaging motions of his hands became much rougher, building her desire for him, making it that much stronger.

Her writhing in his secure hold made her backside brush against his groin and it made her quite aware of the effect the entire exchange was having on him. And even in the garbled state of her mind she couldn't help a spark of exultancy at her own capabilities to excite her captor. While he fingered her over her underwear, she made a point of rubbing her firm ass against his erection, that familiar sense of jubilance once again washing over her when his heavy grunt reverberated through her from where her back rested on his chest.

She seemed to have been so caught up with her little game that it came as a complete surprise to her when she felt her panties slide down her toned thighs and pool around her ankles. The calloused fingers now touched her unhindered, the exploring hand getting coated in pre-coital juices before a finger slowly, ever so slowly invaded her.

The single touch sent wave upon wave of heat through her entire being, from the point of contact throughout her whole body. A savage moan escaped her and she bucked her hips against the hand again. Her captor seemed to enjoy the sight of her pushing her pelvis against his fingers for a moment, until he relieved her by setting a pace of his own. Another digit joined the first, stretching her even more. The fingers probed her inner walls that clenched tightly around them, making the man take in bated breaths at the thought of another part of him being clung to so tightly by her sweet moist channel.

His hand pumped in and out of her at a brisk pace and her head was thrown back while she experienced this moment of intimacy with a person whose face she didn't know and whose name she was gasping out but couldn't hear even with her own ears. His long, manly digits penetrated her again and again, making a knot of burning hot ecstasy start building in the pit of her stomach, her moans rising in pitch the closer the knot got to breaking.

She felt something warm and _hard_ against the inner side of one of her thighs but she was so close to completion she didn't have even half a mind to pay any heed to it.

He finger-fucked her until she screamed his name, coming all over his hand that was impaling her. He chuckled throatily against her ear, his warm breath pulling her out of the pits of wanton ecstasy with the coiling hot desire for more.

The hand that had been inside of her slid up, retracing its trek downwards in reverse direction, over her flat stomach and up to her tit, smearing her orgasmic juices on its way over her body. She felt an aroused shiver run down her spine while he cupped her breasts with both hands, then going with the invasive hand further up, gently hovering over the column of her neck and stopping over her lips.

She parted her teeth just as he pushed the fingers that had brought her to her climax into her warm mouth. She closed her lips around his hand, tasting herself on them. Another excited shudder raked her spine while she sucked and licked his fingers clean, making him groan and fasten his hold on the breast he was still holding. He grinded his lower half against her, making both of them take in a sharp gasp when his erection slid against her moist slit.

He kissed the side of her face while she suckled on his fingers, effectively driving kinky thoughts of what better use she could find for that warm mouth of hers into his mind.

_Just as oblivion was about to take her, she managed to force enough coherence to her ears, in order to hear herself scream her somewhat familiar yet not entirely lover's name._

* * *

Tsubaki awoke with a start. Her eyes swept swiftly over her surroundings even though she wasn't entirely sure what she was looking for exactly.

The young chain scythe took in a large gulp of air and then slowly exhaled in an attempt to calm her ragged breathing. She could hear her heart hammering against her ribcage and upon dabbing her forehead with the back of her palm she brushed cold beads of sweat that had gathered there.

She heaved another sigh and looked around the room, bathed in the generous light of the late morning. She'd slept in. And to think what kind of _dream_ she'd had…

A flush rose in her cheeks at the remembrance. She shifted a bit under her covers and knew that the repercussions of such an indecent dream would require that she took a shower before doing anything else that day.

"Tsubaki, you're awake."

Even though the all too familiar voice was in a quite low volume compared to its usual strength, the arrival of its owner made the lying girl jump about a foot in the air and turn her head around to look at him so fast it gave her whiplash.

Black Star blinked a couple of times while he beheld the sight of her mussed up hair from sleep and the aggravated blush on her face. He resumed drying his hair with the towel that was around his neck with somewhat reluctant interest in her antics. She was being unusually fidgety for such an early hour.

"Are you alright? You look somewhat feverish. That why you slept in?"

The girl shook her head vigorously, holding her hands up in a placating gesture.

"N-no, no, everything's ok. I guess I was j-just… tired, that's all." Yeah. Tired. That would be one way of putting it.

Black Star didn't seem at all convinced but when she held on tighter to her covers under his scrutiny, shifting away from his gaze, he decided against pestering her.

"I'm done with my morning work-out so the shower's free." Yes, a shower sounded very nice.

And it was really humiliating how difficult it was to keep her eyes away from his bare torso.

"I'll leave getting breakfast ready to you."

"Y-yes, in a minute," she promised shakily, with an equally quivering smile and voice.

He eyed her suspiciously for a minute more and then left her to her own devices, going back to his room to dress and get ready for another day of pursuing his goal of surpassing God.

Tsubaki, on the other hand, once she was alone in the room, collapsed back into her futon, her gaze pinned to the ceiling and her heart hammering in her rib cage making her ears ring.

She closed her eyes and sighed heavily once more, wondering just how she was going to get through the day.

Because not only had she dreamed something so improper, but the name she'd heard herself scream and moan and whisper in her reverie had been none other's than her meister's.

* * *

_A/N:_ Here's my first entry for 30_lemons' challenge, for prompt #1 – Anonymity or "Taken by the Faceless Stranger". I focused on "Taken by the Faceless Stranger", as you can see. :3 I hope you liked and that I edited this nicely enough not to get myself kicked off (_again_) for writing such stuff. However, this story is a bit more explicit and if you want to have it unabridged, the link is in my profile. :3 Hope you enjoyed and till next time! X3


	17. Kiss 04: Fan Club

I imagine Black Star to be sixteenish in this one. So keep that in mind—that he's older—while reading this.

* * *

_**Fan Club**_

* * *

It had been a week since Black Star's whole changing-character-after-getting-hit-on-the-head-by-a-heavy-book fiasco but the aftermath of the whole escapade had yet to die down.

Thanks to the stunt she'd pulled in order to have her partner get back to his senses, Tsubaki had ensured herself quite the large and energetic bunch that followed her practically everywhere she went, offering her help, snacks and their undying love (when they happened to be a bit more forward of individuals).

She found the fact they had liked her… ahem, "performance" as much quite moving and the way they acted upon their uncharacteristic infatuation with her endearing but it was quite an inconvenience to have people she'd never even seen before in her life tailing her everywhere she went in Shibusen and shoving their affections in her face whether she liked it or not.

But worst of all was the fact that she could sense a storm brewing within Black Star every time someone from her admirers approached her when the Star clan survivor was in the vicinity.

Never the one to let chaos and discord reign for too long in their life, Tsubaki always found ways to make the pesky kids scatter before her partner could blow a fuse. She was still worried over his mental health after that character changing episode last week, so she had to take better care of him if she wanted to be sure everything would be alright (and the story wouldn't repeat itself, much to her horror).

Even though it was obvious he was displeased with the whole situation, Black Star never said anything outright and never let loose his irritation, and Tsubaki did a fine job of keeping her admirers on a long enough leash so they couldn't cause her or her partner too much trouble, so she guessed that everything would be all right soon enough, that their enthusiasm would die down and everything would be back to how she was used to having it.

Her calculations for a peaceful life and going back to how things were before did not include the creation of the official Shibusen "Tsubaki Fan Club" though…

* * *

He'd been in a rotten mood ever since he'd snapped out of that weird daze that had had him wanting to study like there's no tomorrow. As if that hadn't been enough, somehow Tsubaki had got herself a whole crowd of admirers and a private fan club _before he had got his_.

This was absolutely preposterous and it put him in a foul mood every time he contemplated it. How had _Tsubaki_ been able to get herself a flock of fans before he'd managed to convince a larger part of the world how epically awesome he was? His mind just couldn't wrap itself around the fact. It was ludicrous, totally incredulous!

He kept his mouth shut with her though—he was a big enough man to let his partner enjoy some attention. After all, she'd always be in the shadow of his greatness if she continued being his partner, so she might as well enjoy the unexpectedly garnered attention while she still could.

However, even someone larger than life like he couldn't continue keeping his ire at bay when he came across the newly created official "Tsubaki Fan Club".

* * *

He was first introduced to the fan club when a bunch of fools with death wishes approached him with the idea of recruiting him into their ranks.

Him, the great, almighty Black Star. Into someone else's _fan club_.

They really should've known better.

"Tsubaki… fan… club…?" He read the header of the paper they'd shoved in his hands slowly, every word sinking in with the speed of a leaden nail put in yoghurt.

"We thought that, as the person closest to her, you'd be able to share some things about her that we couldn't possibly know, Black Star," one of the death-wish-having morons said, ignorantly digging his grave deeper with each subsequent word. "You live with her, after all."

"We're willing to give you a more important role in the club, too, as our most prized member!" another continued, making a muscle in the azure haired teen's cheek twitch for a millisecond.

His emerald gaze skimmed the page they'd given him, each word pinning itself deeper and deeper into his mind. Tsubaki fan club… These guys had officially come together and formed a club, the sole purpose of which was to idolize his partner and shower her with their moronic notions of adoration and gifts and whatnot.

They had formed a real _club_ in _school_ for _his partner_.

_Before he had ever had one of his own_.

"Are you… serious about this?" His hands were slightly trembling from the restrained fury, his tone so reserved it was almost morbid.

Blinded by their enthusiasm (and imbecility, if you asked Black Star) the boys trying to recruit him failed to realize the true meaning of the calm before the storm, thinking that he was actually so overwhelmed by the greatness of their offer and the notion of becoming a part of the fan club that they continued making their situation worse and worse by telling him what they did on their meetings and how they practically stalked the girl during after school hours.

Instead of unleashing his rage, though, Black Star decided he was bigger than this kind of pettiness.

So he nodded at the goons, tore up the sheet of paper into tiny pieces in a matter of seconds and threw them in the idiots' faces, leaving them baffled and confused in his wake.

He would let those morons have their fun for now because he was just a great man like that.

But his patience with them had already run out and the next time they did something—anything, however insignificant—to piss him off, he'd let them have a piece of his mind.

He could've never imagined it would happen sooner than he'd expected.

* * *

The next evening after dinner was had and dishes were long done, Black Star went into the kitchen to get himself a refreshing drink after the evening work out to find Tsubaki doing something at the stove.

Curiosity piqued, he peeked over her shoulder to see what she was cooking.

"What are you doing?" he asked good-naturedly, a sweating can of soda in his hand's grasp.

"Hm?" Tsubaki turned her slightly surprised gaze at him—she hadn't heard him come in or approach her. This was kind of odd, since she was always aware of his presence, but he didn't pay that fact too much heed. "Oh, I'm cooking for the guys at school."

Black Star's eyes narrowed. He sure as hell hoped that she meant their friends with that and not _those_ people…

"What's the occasion?" Her internal alarms started going off at the tone of his voice but she subdued her reflex panic, thinking she was just reading too deep into shallow matters.

"They're having some sort of gathering tomorrow and they invited me for it, so I thought I could bring a little something with me." The endearing smile on her face only served to tick him off even further.

A vein pulsed into visibility on the side of his forehead.

If she'd listened in a bit closer, she would've probably heard the snapping noise his patience made when it ran out.

"You're going to _cook_ for them?" His tone was incredulous, his eyes wide with disbelief. Not only did they practically worship her but now she was going to do things that would only promote her in their eyes. If she did that, when was this fiasco going to end? "You're going to waste perfectly good food on that bunch?"

"Well, they're a bit persistent but they're not bad people, so I can't see why not," said the oblivious Tsubaki, tasting her cooking with the small plate.

Black Star almost sputtered in his ire.

"C-…" He paused, unwilling to make himself appear any less godly by stuttering. "Can't see why _not_?" He gave her the most level look he could muster at the moment, resisting the urge to emphasize his point by gesticulating with his hands. "Tsubaki, they're only going to keep trying if you're nice to them. You need to let them know they should just scram and leave you alone and free you of their imbecility."

At first, when the whole thing had started, the Nakatsukasa heiress had felt a bit flattered by the thought that people considered her worthy of admiration and that Black Star possibly disliked the attention she received because he'd rather she was only at the receiving end of _his_ attentions. Now, though, it was evident that he only disliked it because she was _the only one_ getting attention, "eclipsing" him or something silly like that.

She wasn't an easy to anger person but he was most certainly cruising towards that destination with the petulant way he was behaving at current.

And, worse yet, it made a whimsical, petulant streak in her rear its ugly head in retaliation as well.

"Well, maybe I _want_ them to keep "pestering" me." She stirred the soup with more vigor than absolutely necessary. "Maybe I don't think of it as much as a nuisance as you might believe I do."

Black Star gave an incredulous laugh.

"Please, Tsubaki. I know you better than you think – you're going out of your way to appeal to those people even though their attentions are making you feel uncomfortable. There's no need to put yourself through that; you're not fit for standing under the spotlight for long."

She could've continued that argument. Really, she could have. But she wasn't that kind of person. She didn't like confrontation, least of all with this boy, her partner. His words hurt because they were too well-aimed for sore spots but it wasn't like they weren't true.

He had gone and made her feel rebellious though, so there was no way she was going to drop the matter as easily as she might have otherwise.

When she refused the acknowledge the young assassin's last argument, he growled ill-temperedly and slammed his fist on the table with so much force that she jumped slightly in fright.

By the time she could turn around to look at him, he'd disappeared from the kitchen, leaving the can—mangled from the way he'd clutched it in his iron grip—still overflowing with soda he hadn't drunk, the mess of tin and fluid the only sign he'd sat at the table mere seconds ago.

The whole encounter left Tsubaki with a bitter taste in her mouth.

She wasn't going to apologize for him saying hurtful words towards her though.

Not this time.

* * *

Another week had passed and the Tsubaki Fan Club had begun going all-out with their activities.

The girl they were centered around became the main attraction, visiting their club every other day for playing their variation of "Twenty Questions" for their amusement; teaching them how to cook or sew or showing them various things she'd learnt in her days.

She barely had time for herself anymore and it had become a very tiresome day-to-day life.

But she wasn't going to back down. Not this time. Not while Black Star was acting all cold and disinterested in her and her matters, not waiting for her before going home, eating on his own and completely ignoring her during class, going to school at a different time than her and never talking to her anymore.

This was probably the longest argument they'd ever had because she was feeling specifically stubborn this time.

Of course, she realized it was a matter of time before she bent under the pressure and apologized for something that wasn't her fault. Again. For the millionth time. It was always her who apologized, always her who came back with her head bowed. Never him. Always her.

It had become so tiring and vexing that maybe it was those emotions that fueled her pigheadedness with this situation. She couldn't be sure but she'd definitely give it her best shot, even if that meant she'd drop from emotional and physical exhaustion while trying to give it her all.

The restless everyday routine she'd fallen into turned even more hectic when, during one of the question-and-answer sessions they had at the club room, someone raised a matter she wasn't entirely familiar (or comfortable, for that matter) with.

"You're such a talented, good-natured and great girl, Tsubaki. Why don't you have a boyfriend yet?" someone asked.

And, despite herself, a tiny, minuscule voice in the back of her head that had taken to antagonizing her partner lately, retorted sardonically in her own mind, "That would be Black Star's fault," even though she knew that was barely true (but not completely false either; not that she would know at that point in time though).

She'd never even thought about having a boyfriend, really. She'd never met anyone she'd want to be romantically interested in. She had her hands full of taking care of her immature partner, fixing his problems and fixing those between them, trying hard to become a Death Scythe and being busy with chores and all the like at home in her free-time (since she loved doing chores).

She'd never even considered it.

When she voiced that thought everyone present seemed to be surprised at the fact.

"Really? But there _must_ be something you'd look for in a guy—something you'd find attractive no matter the circumstances," a girl continued pressing her.

A thoughtful look seized the raven haired chain scythe's face.

"Well… I guess it wouldn't hurt to have someone confident at my side, since if we're both unsure of what we're doing there would never be much progress with anything we do." She made another long pause, contemplating. "Looks aren't important but charisma is a good thing to have." She scratched her cheek, eyes pinned to the ceiling as if the answer to the kids' questions were written there. "Someone who can understand me without me having to explain myself excessively…"

And as she spoke she realized that she was practically describing a particular person with whom she was at a violent disagreement at current.

All because she was so bent on something that was doing her more harm than good.

She'd never been very apt at being in the spotlight and now she was pigheadedly holding onto it, and for what? Just to piss off her partner? What did _that_ accomplish? They hadn't been on a mission to gather any souls in _weeks_, and even if they went now, their sync would be all over the place.

All because she'd chosen to handle a matter wrongly.

She was such an idiot.

She'd been so flattered by the notion that someone other than her friends had thought her worthy their time of the day that she'd clutched onto those people who didn't even know the first thing about her—couldn't care less about her problems at home, or that _they_ were the ones creating a rift between her and the most important person in her life—instead of cherishing what was really important to her.

She was horrified that she couldn't remember the last time she'd spoken more than several words with Maka in between classes or in the halls, or how long it had been since she'd last collected a soul to bring her closer to being a Death Scythe.

The throng around her had begun to question her, to make her think about having this guy or that as a candidate for her affections but she wasn't paying attention to what they were saying. She needed to get away from them, to tear away from these people who were changing her lifestyle forcefully and into something she did not like or even approve of.

Of course, when she announced her desires, they wouldn't let her pass and she barely managed to get out in the hallways—wow, she'd known they were persistent, but this was almost criminal, the rational part of her mind reasoned—when she bumped into someone rather violently.

"I'm truly very sorry!" she rasped out, rubbing her hurt nose. She'd been pushed with such great momentum into the broad chest of the individual in front of her that tears had welled in her eyes at the force with which her nose had connected with his frame.

When she looked up from her position bowing in apology before the person, she discovered with great surprise that it was none other than Black Star standing in front of the club room, a withering look in his stony emerald gaze.

"Had enough of popularity yet?" His tone was so cold it sent a chill down her spine.

The crowd behind her was becoming rowdy with trying to get to her but she didn't move while they crowded her, almost blocking him from her view. She had hung her head again, teeth digging in her lower lip.

"I've had enough," she said, barely above a whisper and she wondered whether he could even hear her. "I'm an idiot for behaving this way the last few days and I'm sorry, Black Star. I don't even know what I was trying to prove. I just… I just want to go home and… and…" Her eyes filled with tears she refused to shed and, unbeknownst to her diverted eyes, the stern look on her partner's expression melted into something much less cold and quite a bit gentler.

"Let's get you home then," he murmured in her ear and it was only then that she realized he had deftly maneuvered his way through the crowd to seize her by the shoulders, navigating her through the crowd towards the closest exit.

"B-but—!" she began, trying to draw her savior's attention. "But even if I go home now, tomorrow it will be the same thing all over again!" she complained, the helplessness of the situation stabbing her through the heart like a dagger. She was so _tired_ of all this… She desperately wanted her personal space back.

Black Star stopped pushing her onward, a thoughtful look on his face as he considered her words.

"You have a point there," he admitted, rubbing his chin as he thought. She reckoned that he was being much too thorough in his show of mulling the matter over—something was definitely fishy. She knew he was plotting something—probably to make her regret having acted against his will for so long—when he seemingly came up with an idea. "I know what to do but you'll have to play along." He bent a bit so that his mouth was next to her ear and for some reason the action and his warm breath at her earlobe made her heart flutter in her chest. "And make it look convincing, okay?"

"What—" She never got the chance to ask him what he was plotting because he shoved some of the people out of his way and posed in the way he usually did when he was about to make a silly proclamation of some sort.

"At your attention, Tsubaki Fan Club! The great Black Star is here and he has an announcement to make!" His tactic worked and the throng moved to accommodate the two of them in its midst, eyes pinned to the star team of Crescent class. "From this day forth, the Tsubaki Fan Club shall be disbanded because of the inconvenience you've caused to your mascot."

There was a large echo of displeasure that rippled throughout the mass of people gathered at his declaration.

"Black Star, what are you doing?" the girl in question asked anxiously while she sweated bullets at the notion of how violent these people could become when displeased for all she knew. She wasn't too worried about herself—they were supposed to love her; shouldn't they be careful that she shouldn't get harmed during their outbursts?—but she was sure that even someone like her partner wouldn't be able to stand up to so many technicians and weapons gathered at one place.

"Easy, Tsubaki—I've got it all under control," he whispered back at her and she cocked a dubious eyebrow while the throng started to close in on them. She really wondered how _this_ was having the situation 'under control'. "So, if you'll excuse us, we're going to leave now. Have a nice evening and take care!"

Before he could make their hasty escape, a bunch of sturdy, broad guys blocked his path towards the exit. They had mean looks in their eyes that spelled trouble.

Tsubaki swallowed thickly. Well now, this certainly looked like it was about to backfire…

"And who are _you_ to tell her what to do, huh?" One of the gorillas asked in a nasty tone.

"With what is doing that different than what we do?" Another piped up.

Black Star's lips curled into an impish grin.

"Who am I?" Tsubaki felt the dread rise in her. Oh no… Here came the tirade… "_Who_ am _I_?" He laughed raucously, lifting an index finger in the air, pointing towards the heavens. "Why, I am the great Black Star, the man bigger than life, the one who has surpassed the gods!"

By that time everyone present had begun rolling their eyes while Tsubaki indiscernibly shook her head in disapproval, knowing he was really just adding oil to the fire when they got out of their stupor. Before the crowd could lash out at them, though, Black Star continued.

And in a rather uncontroversial way too.

He grabbed her by the arm, pulling her against his slightly taller frame until she was flush up against him. She only had the chance to open her mouth to take a breath in but her question died in her throat because his mouth covered hers and made her unable to say whatever she meant to.

A millisecond later even she couldn't remember what it was she had been about to say because the contact of his lips against hers—confident and demanding, pliant and unyielding—made her mind blank out and her heart practically leap in her throat, hammering against the confines of her air pipe.

Just as she was wondering _what the hell he was doing_, _and in front of so many people, too_—which did not mean to say that she'd considered doing this at all before, spectators or not; it was news to her; honest!—his earlier words made it to the forefront of her conscious.

_Play along and try to make it look convincing_, was it?

Her heart was still pounding like there would be no tomorrow and her knees had practically become jell-o, but her hand advanced rather boldly—by Tsubaki-standards, at least—to hold him by the back of his neck and putting some effort into the kiss that quickly became rather fervent—to her weak heart's utter horror and to her girlish fantasies' total bliss.

Her eyes had closed as though by their own volition, but she could practically _feel_ the myriad of gazes on the two of them and the jaws that hit the floor simultaneously while her partner worked miracles to her insides by the way his tongue swept over her mouth.

When he pulled away for air and she leant against him for support—because, if she trusted herself with even a task as simple as _standing_ at that moment, she'd probably crumple to her knees—he flashed a smug grin to the gathered crowd, his hand placed on his companion's waist to hold her close.

"And I'm her _partner_."

The way he said the word after the kiss he'd just smothered her with in front of all those people left them with no doubt whatsoever that it wasn't just the apartment that the two shared (even though the assumption was so way off it was barely comprehensible) and, miraculously, they were absolved of having to suffer the Tsubaki Fan Club's company much longer.

It was on the way to their abode that the Nakatsukasa girl finally snapped out of her daze, realizing with another leap of the heart that he still had his arm around her waist.

He had never lied to those folks; she had to give him that.

But to have scandalized them so completely…

Her mind was frantically going over the events of the past few minutes—trying to reason out this bout of utter insanity on Black Star's part, and with even doubly more effort trying to figure out _why_ she had decided to follow his lead—when her partner (the word would never be the same, she could swear on that) grinned widely at her.

"You were saying earlier?"

She blinked several times, her expression screaming that she barely even knew who she was, not to mention remembering what she had been talking about.

"You said you just wanted to go home and you never finished," he clarified, a mischievous look in his eye.

Her face flushed red at the remembrance of the moment—and what followed after it as her assassin partner's brilliant solution to her problem.

What _did_ she want to do, she wondered.

Looking up hesitantly to his profile and his smug expression, she smiled tentatively as well.

"We'll see when we get home," she said while they trudged on, his arm still wrapped snugly around her waist.

She'd said it even though (having her easily affected self infected by his contagious mischievousness) she would've preferred to say, 'We can continue where we left off at the club.'

The very next day the official Tsubaki Fan Club was officially disbanded, having its purpose threatened by the man greater than any other.

However, with the club's infamous disbanding becoming a common fact among the student body of Shibusen, news traveled fast and various rumors were given birth to thanks to the occasion.

Black Star didn't mind though. He had all the time in the world to prove the rumors right.

* * *

_A/N:_ This one was inspired by the CD drama about Black Star and Tsubaki. I had the idea a long time ago but Milli Tora's inspiring reviews led me to getting my inspiration back for this pairing and writing this idea out. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

I'm taking requests, in case anyone has an idea they'd like to see written out. Just don't be mad if I can't comply with it, okay? My muse is a very whimsical creature.

_Story written for LJ's "30 Kisses" prompt number __7__ – "__Superstar__"._


	18. Kiss 05: In a Hurry

_**In a Hurry**_

* * *

It was a Sunday just like any other in Death City. The sun was shining bright (and laughing like a lunatic while at it) in the sky, the birds were chirping in the trees and Black Star was off somewhere for another bout of insanely strenuous exercise.

Honestly, Tsubaki was starting to wonder whether the boy was even human. Determination was one thing, and being religious with training another, but his take on things was really mind-boggling.

For all she knew, he might really surpass the gods like he claimed he would. Any day now.

So, while he was gone and thus unable to obstruct her in any way, she decided to do what she always did Sundays.

And namely, clean their apartment and tidy things up for the coming week.

Her mother had taught her that a woman who didn't keep her place clean would be a much less eligible choice for a wife when she grew up. Not wanting to be left alone and unloved when she got older, young Tsubaki had taken it upon herself to help her mother sweep the Nakatsukasa household clean every Sunday afternoon. And since then, the habit had kind of stuck.

While she was dusting in her partner's room, she found an odd object lying around on his desk, under the piles and piles of manga and other, more inappropriate magazines that she shook her head disapprovingly at.

She lifted up the thing and found it to be a bottle of pills. As she turned it over in her hand to study it, she read the label.

It said Wada Calcium CD3.

She quirked a confused brow at it but didn't let it deter her on her quest of making their apartment a chaos- and dust-free place before her partner returned from his daily run around the city.

Black Star returned a couple of hours later, sweat trickling down from every pore on his body and soaking his airy white muscle shirt and loose black pants. He let himself into the apartment he shared with Tsubaki ceremoniously, huffing and puffing as he made his way across the living room towards the fridge.

"Hey," Tsubaki greeted him with a smile from her place in front of the stove.

"Hey," he greeted back breathlessly before downing a liter of cold mineral water he procured from the fridge.

His weapon watched him curiously while his Adam's apple bobbed up and down as he greedily drank the liquid. When he finished the bottle, he exhaled loudly and leaned against the refrigerator, drying his wet azure spikes of hair with the back of his bandaged forearm.

He became aware of her stare about then, when she didn't say anything but kept peering at him out of the corner of her eye. As he finally regained his breath, he fixed her with a puzzled look of his own.

"What?" he asked simply and she shrugged, turning back to her task at hand.

"Nothing." She paused for a bit, a pensive look settling on her face. "I was just wondering."

"About what?" he queried, deciding to play along while he started undoing the bandages wound tightly around his arms.

"Sunday is cleaning day for me, as you know," she ventured and he nodded to show that he was still listening though not very carefully. "And while I was cleaning your room, I came across this."

She lifted up the pill bottle for him to see and was slightly amused by how he stiffened slightly when his eyes fell on it. Anyone else might not have detected it, but the time she'd spent by his side had heightened Tsubaki's senses and made them so finely tuned as to catch even the slightest of changes in his facial expressions and body alignment.

"Oh. I was wondering where I'd put that," he said off-handily, reaching out to take the pill bottle and quickly pocketing it as if its presence offended him in some way.

His slightly inadequate behaviour made her raise a brow in curiosity.

"What are those pills for?"

He shrugged noncommittally but she could see this was a topic he wasn't entirely comfortable discussing. She couldn't help but wonder why.

"Just pills," he said, suddenly tight-lipped. He pushed himself off the surface of the fridge and went for his room to fetch himself a towel to dry off with.

"You don't take pills—you _hate_ pills." He had reined in his reactions because this time he didn't even twitch at her quite correct claim that cornered him in his attempt to evade the matter. "What could possibly make you change your mind about them?"

"I haven't," he responded as he disappeared into the depths of his room.

"I thought pills made you a lesser being and tampered with your shine," she said through a secret smile as she continued stirring the pot on the stove.

"It's just a growth aid," he volunteered with a sigh, rolling his eyes while he came out of his bedroom with a towel in his hands.

His clarification only made Tsubaki more confused. She turned around fully to face him, a puzzled look etched onto her face. His refusal to make eye-contact with her was quite intriguing to the chain scythe girl.

"Are you in a hurry to grow up?" He? Of all people? The most childish of team Spartoi? _Really_?

He shrugged.

"Not really—I just want to get taller," he confessed easily and her brow furrowed even further.

She didn't understand his sudden fixation with this but it was obviously a big deal, since he'd lowered himself—by his standards, at least, 'lowered himself'—to taking meds to help him grow taller faster. However, she doubted that asking him any more questions would get her any closer to getting why this was so important to him all of a sudden.

She chalked it off to him thinking that the taller he was, the closer he would be to the deities he so desperately wanted to prove himself better than, and decided to change the subject before she gave him reason to launch into another tirade about how great he was and how even more awesome he would become.

Black Star, on the other hand, did a good job of hiding how relieved he was by the topic change.

He fingered the prescription bottle in his pocket as he thought how there was no way he was going to be able to explain to her that before surpassing the gods, he had recently established another, mini-goal of surpassing her in height.

After all, it would be horribly humiliating to have to use props or to ask Tsubaki to bend down so he can reach his new romantic interest for a kiss.

* * *

_A/N:_ Just a little bit of drabble fluff to fluffen your day. :D (And, yes, I _am _aware that "fluffen" is not a real word.) I'm going to be working on the request from Pachi, on both versions of it I came up with. I also have another "30 Kiss" entry that I have in mind, another drabble and the prequel to "Acceptance" is sixty percent done. :D It's a Black Star/Tsubaki writing binge over here!

_Story written for LJ's "30 Kisses" prompt number __28 __– "__Wada Calcium CD3__"._


	19. Growth Spurt

_**Growth Spurt**_

* * *

For a few weeks now, Black Star had been complaining about chronic pain "all over"—those being his own words—and insistently massaging his joints and neck every time it got exceptionally bad.

But, perhaps miraculously considering her nature, Tsubaki wasn't worried about that matter at all.

No—she could very well _see_ what his problem was even he himself didn't realize it yet.

What she was worried about in this situation was the weird way her own body was reacting to the change in his.

You see, just recently Black Star had turned sixteen. He'd seemed to her like a late bloomer from the moment she'd met him (being thirteen and still as short as he had been) but she guessed even _he_ would get to reap the benefits of male puberty sooner or later.

Since about the time of his sixteenth birthday, he'd started growing quite rapidly. She almost felt like he grew a centimeter each day, which she believed was humanly unthinkable. No matter how great he claimed he was, regardless of how often he declared that he would surpass the gods, Black Star was still a (not entirely) normal human boy. And normal human boys _did not_ grow _that_ fast.

…Then again, it _was_ Black Star so maybe it wasn't exactly impossible?

But she digressed.

The problem here was that his growth spurt was so violent that his quickly growing limbs and increasing height were causing him chronic pain. It didn't seem to deter him from any of his daily activities (because he was Black Star and he was bigger than that!—those being his own words again) but not even someone as '_divine_' as Black Star could handle perpetual discomfort without complaint.

That was his problem with his growth spurt.

His partner's problem with it, on the other hand, had nothing to do with his take on it. (Well, maybe not _entirely_ nothing to do—she didn't like seeing him inconvenienced in any way, so she wished she could do something to alleviate his pain. But there wasn't anything she could actually do, so she tried her best not to dwell too much on it.)

No—Tsubaki's problem with his growth spurt had begun when she'd noticed that she no longer had to look down to lock her gaze with his. In fact, yesterday, when she'd stood by him she'd even had to tilt her head slightly up so she could look at him in the eye.

And when she'd realized that fact, her face had turned such a bright red colour and so quickly that he'd put a hand to her forehead, worried she might be running a fever.

And _that_ had made the situation worse—if she thought she'd been embarrassed before, she had no idea how to label the feeling his comment had begotten in her afterwards.

When she'd had time to sit down and consider things, she tried to find in herself the reason why such a minor change was affecting her so largely. Even Black Star himself seemed to be unaware of it still—meaning that it was no big deal to him at all (and, when seriously considering it, it wasn't; it was the natural flow of things, really, because how long did she _think_ that she, a girl, was going to stay taller than him, a boy?)—so why was _she_ bothered by it?

Her own reaction to him completely puzzled her. Did she feel intimidated now that the status-quo in height had changed? Was it because she caught off-guard by the change? Was it because he'd grown so much already and didn't seem to be anywhere near stopping yet?

None of those made sense.

But perhaps what puzzled her the most was not the reason for her flustering but the fact that she _was_ flustered—every time she walked into the same premise as him, every time she saw him lately.

_Why_ did she get flustered, regardless of the reason for the reaction (if that even made sense; she wasn't sure she had any coherency left in her mental process any longer, much thanks to him)? She was Tsubaki—she was used to being peeped on, having her skirt flipped and her panties shown to people. She was used to all those things and they didn't even make her bat an eyelash anymore.

So what could _possibly_ make her so flustered?

She was just his partner, after all—they'd been a team for so long, they were practically family. (Even though she had never thought of him—not _once_—as a little brother.) She felt so close to him—like she could relate to him—and she knew he did, too, in his own way. Even though he never said it. Even though she didn't either.

She felt close to him but she knew she was not his closest friend—that spot was reserved for Soul-kun and Kid-kun. There was no way she could compete with male camaraderie after all.

So what did that make her to him? She pondered. Maybe his best girl friend (not to be confused with any sort of _girlfriend—_yet another thought that made her blush) but she wasn't even sure of that, since he probably had more similarities with Maka than with her, seeing as they were both technicians.

What she was sure of was that she was his Shibusen partner—someone he could get along with enough to generate a strong enough soul resonance, someone whom he liked to peep on in the bath and someone whom he could rely on.

However, he had never done or said anything to make her think he saw her as anything more than that—his weapon partner and a friend who just happened to be a very tolerant girl.

And the fact that this thought made her feel a twinge of disappointment prompted her to realize just what her problem with his changing body was.

Before, she had been regarding him just like he did her—he had been her Shibusen partner, her technician, her confidant.

Her best friend.

And nothing but that.

The fact he happened to be male hardly ever even registered with her (except the times when he peeped on her; during those it was kind of hard to ignore that).

And could she really be blamed for that? He was her junior by a couple of years, he was so silly and immature that most of the time it was hard to believe he was a teenager and he was shorter than her by more than a whole head.

Now though? Now his shoulders were broader and he was taller, which made even more evident the fact that he was very well-sculpted build-wise. His change in size made more prominent all the muscles in his arms, legs and back that were perfectly toned thanks to his everyday religious workouts. He was still perky and loud but the moments when he kept quiet and became immersed in his thoughts were much more frequent than before, giving him an air of virility that hadn't been there before.

Suddenly, in her eyes, he wasn't _just_ Black Star. He wasn't just her partner, her best friend, the one she could always lean on for support when she truly needed it.

He was a growing young _man_ whom she shared an apartment with and, most humiliatingly…

… He was someone she suddenly felt attracted to.

Just realizing that fact had been enough to knock her out cold for a good few minutes. Only through years upon years of training to become a great weapon did she not succumb to the urge to surrender to unconsciousness.

She'd thought that figuring out the mystery of her being flustered around him would have solved the problem. Instead, she'd only created bigger ones with that—_great job_, she congratulated herself sarcastically in her mind.

And after having that kind of train of thought, could she really be blamed for having a hard time being in the same room as him?

Every time he was in the same premise, her heart sped up, her pulse became erratic and her cheeks flushed with colour. Her hold on objects slackened and she became even clumsier than she already was, infallibly making a spectacle of herself when he was around. Of course, if he stayed around her long enough, she eventually calmed down a bit, regained some control of herself and her flailing extremities.

But her limbs would still shake, her skin would still feel hot under his gaze and she would still feel nervous until she was left alone again.

Thankfully for her, Black Star didn't seem to think much of those quirky moments of hers. For all she knew, he hadn't even noticed that she was behaving any different. While that was vaguely discouraging in a way, it was also quite the blessing—for once, Tsubaki felt infinitely grateful that her partner was painfully thick when it came to matters of human interaction.

At least she could rest assured that her secret—that she was so blatantly obviously (infatuated?) attracted to him—was safe from him.

So she carried on with her life, doing her best to rein in her reactions when he entered a room she was in, getting better and better at pretending that everything was the same as ever.

Pretending that she hadn't realized something about herself that had changed the way she viewed him in every way possible.

She'd been lulled so deeply into a false sense of security by his density that she had never had the chance to be prepared for what transpired one sunny summer day that had seemed just like any other at first.

It was an early evening when Tsubaki had entered the kitchen, getting ready to cook supper. She knew for a fact that she was alone in the apartment because had she seen Black Star off not two hours ago—he had gone somewhere with Soul. She hadn't pried because she believed that the boys needed their space and, besides, knowing where they were going or what they were doing wouldn't have changed anything.

So there she was, on her own in her comfort zone, getting ready to work her magic in the kitchen.

She'd already put the pot on the stove and chopped up the carrots and onions when her mind started to drift from the menial tasks her hands had to deal with.

Soul-kun, huh? He had been the first of the Spartoi boys to go through the growth spurt. And the Nakatsukasa heiress couldn't help but wonder if Maka-chan was possibly having similar issues as her with coping with the change. But then again, Maka-chan wasn't nearly as silly and clumsy as her—she would never start dropping books, plates and glasses just because Soul-kun walked into a room.

Tsubaki slowed her vegetable chopping, staring at the wooden board with the half-prepared ingredient. She'd always admired Maka-chan for her courage and her strength—something she still doubted she herself had in her. Maybe she should go talk to the blonde one of these days? She didn't feel comfortable with the thought of voicing out loud these feelings she was sporting lately but it would be better to get some advice than to keep stomping on the same spot forever, right?

She nodded decisively to herself, her mouth set in a firm line, as she continued chopping the potato in her hand with renewed vigour. She was sure that Maka-chan would definitely know what to do in this sort of situation, even though she claimed she hated boys. She knew for a fact that her friend read a lot of books on various topics she might sometimes claim stupid or uninteresting, so she might've seen in one of her reads something that could help Tsubaki?

Cheered up by that though, the raven-haired chain scythe started humming a merry tune under her breath as she continued with dinner preparations. She'd been so engrossed in her thoughts that she had failed to note the second presence in the room.

Or maybe if she hadn't been as engulfed with her actions, she might have still not noticed him, considering how skillful he was in masking his presence when he wanted to.

Oblivious of being watched, Tsubaki continued with her ministrations uninterrupted, still humming to herself until she had to get a certain spice to enhance the taste of her meal. She opened the cupboard where she usually put the spice's little shaker only to find that it was on the topmost shelf.

The weapon girl gave it a calculating look before trying to stretch her arm up to take it. It was an action wasted though—her fingertips reached at most to the bottom of the shelf. She sighed through her nose in irritation, retracting her hand and throwing a withering glance at the offending object. Getting a chair and climbing was too much trouble for her and, besides, it had been her who put it up there, right? It seemed impossible that she would suddenly be unable to reach something that she herself had put in its place.

Fuelled by unusual for her character determination and stubbornness, Tsubaki made another attempt to get the troublemaking shaker. This time she managed to reach higher, but instead of helping herself she only managed to push it in even further, making it almost impossible to grasp now.

Before she could curse silently under her breath, a quiet chuckle came from behind her, startling her out of her fixated trance.

The sound had come from much closer than she would've anticipated.

Her heart leapt in her throat as if on cue, breathing normally became a huge feat and her head whipped around to look at the newcomer, surprised and at the same time not really to see Black Star with his hands jammed in his pockets. His figure was slightly slouched as he regarded her from his position of sitting on the edge of the dining table behind her.

"When did you come in? I didn't hear you enter—" is what she wanted and meant to say but the words seemed to have lodged themselves in her throat, right beneath her rapidly beating heart in her trachea and refused to come out. She stared at him, slightly wide-eyed and very much flushed while he took a step closer.

And then another, and another.

Before her frantic mind could catch up to the fact that he was standing _right in front of her_ (or, if you want to get technical, right behind her) and _his face was just a few centimeters from hers_, he gave her a cheeky grin, procuring one of his hands from his pockets and mimicking her upper limb's posture—her arm was frozen in its previous pose, reaching for the spice.

When he leaned in to get the shaker for her, she could feel his body pressing against her back. The contact reduced her to an even more incoherent state than she'd been in before, her skin heating up all over instead of just her face and her gaze pinning to the front so as to try to escape the alluring sight of his exposed neck.

She didn't make a move or a sound while he put down what she'd been so eager to get not a few seconds ago—she was acutely aware of every point of contact of their bodies, of the intoxicating feel of him pressed up against her back, of his breath fanning against the nape of her neck, raising the small hairs there to attention.

As he placed his left hand on her side and the right with the shaker to her other, he quite successfully trapped her between himself and the counter she used for cooking. And she was so consciously aware of that that her mind was incapable of doing anything else other than drawing blanks.

She felt rather than saw him smirk, his head next to her, their difference in height more evident than ever in that very moment. He now towered above her with a good half foot and he was so broad that he could probably envelop all of her and completely hide her from view if he so wanted to.

And such thoughts did nothing to make her calm down at all. Sure, she'd become better at controlling herself when he was in the same room but she had never had to deal with such _proximity_ before.

"Here you go," he said calmly and she heard him so clearly (because his mouth was right next to her earlobe) that the skin on her arms erupted in goosebumps.

Had his voice always been so low and… _manly_? Or had it just recently mutated too?

Had she ever even had the notion of believing it to be as sexy as she thought right then?

"It looks like it will be delicious dinner again," he told her and she stood stiff before him, wondering why he wasn't removing himself even after he was done doing what he had meant to. "You seemed to be in a good mood—I didn't want to disturb you," he mumbled smoothly right in her ear and it was all she could do to fight down the pleasant shiver that threatened to rake her spine.

"Y-you're not," she muttered and was surprised that her voice was even to be trusted with such a short sentence. She had thought herself to have gone completely mute thanks to how fried all her cognitive and somatic processes were thanks to the closeness of his figure.

She saw Black Star smirk slyly out of the corner of her eye, leaning his face in until his presence was all she could see, feel and take in at all.

Tsubaki swallowed dryly, hoping that his sensitive hearing was not good enough to hear how her heart was thundering in her chest right then.

"Am I really not? You look really bothered by something, Tsubaki—are you really alright?"

At any other moment under any other kind of circumstances, she would've never suspected that Black Star, of all people, could ask her this kind of question with anything less than a hundred percent sincerity. Now, though, with the way he so obviously refused to leave her personal space and seemed to enjoy torturing her with the closeness of his buff frame, she was starting to wonder just how daft he really was and whether she hadn't greatly overestimated his density.

His arms moved in closer to her, pinning her even closer to the counter, and it was all she could do to keep her composure when he leaned in further as the inside of his elbows touched her sides.

Knowing better than to attempt speaking again, she just nodded—she was perfectly fine, and she would be better when he _moved_—hoping that this would be enough to make him extricate himself. After all, breathing at even intervals wasn't something she did just because it suited her fancy and he was quite successfully making that simple action impossible for her.

Sadly for her, that evening nothing seemed to be going according to her plans. Using the leverage of his position (and the height boost the accursed growth spurt had given him), Black Star angled himself a bit differently. He shifted their positions slightly, in such a way that ended up with their gazes locked and his breath tickling her lips a hair's breadth away from them.

That was her cue for her own air supply to hitch in her throat. She became so aware of the minuteness of the distance between them and of her pulse that raced in her veins that she thought she might faint from overheating.

It was a miracle that she could hear him over the sound of her rumbling heartbeat. And at the same time his voice barely above a whisper resounded in the recesses of her mind as if he had screamed the words.

"Are you sure? You look really flustered, Tsubaki. Could it be that… _I_ am making you uncomfortable?"

She couldn't tear her wide-eyed gaze away from the way his lips moved as he spoke softly. Her throat had gone dry and her lungs were starving for air but she didn't have enough mental resource to spare those facts any attention.

She was too caught up being torn between leaning in and running away.

If she had given in to the most primordial of her feelings at the current time, she would've probably jumped him without a word, greedily kissing him and pulling him even closer to herself, until she could quell the heat that had risen in her tummy and pooled between her legs. It was a desire she did not entirely understand but didn't care enough to—all she needed was to somehow quench it, sate it because it was going to drive her _insane _with need.

The longer he stayed there like that, the farther running away became from her and the more courage she plucked up for her impulsive thoughts. She had even begun leaning in cautiously, slowly, nanometer after nanometer at a time, drawn in by the strength of his personal gravitation, getting sucked into the vortex of those mesmerizing emerald orbs of his, closer to those slightly parted lips that she coveted more and more by the second—

Boiling water turned into steam as it touched the surface of the stove's hot plate, evaporating with a loud hiss on the spot.

It startled Tsubaki out of her reverie and made Black Star break his block of her movements.

When it sunk into her mind what _exactly_ she had been about to do, Tsubaki's face turned a shade that could rival a ripe tomato's and she threw herself completely into pulling away the pot from the hot plate so that it couldn't do any more damage to the stove.

As she sidestepped him, her ample chest brushing against his arm, she thanked whatever deities up there were still looking out for her, because there was no telling what would've happened if not for this diversion that had made him break his hold—both physical and not—on her.

Unbeknownst to her (who had her back to him), Black Star smiled coyly to himself, pushing his hands into his pockets again but not taking any steps back while he scrutinized her flurry of activity as she attempted to exert some damage control.

"I see you have everything under control here. I'll go get a shower while you finish making dinner," he told her in a low, easy tone, making off in direction of his room after she nodded her affirmation.

When he was gone, Tsubaki groaned to herself, burying her face in her hands. Just _what was she doing_? Even when he was no longer around, what she had almost let happen was still a vivid picture of her mind, refusing to let her racing pulse calm down any. Her face felt hot under her fingers and she was sure that she made a ridiculous sight, with her cheeks a blotchy red colour, in that moment.

The Nakatsukasa heiress sighed and clasped her hands together over her rapidly beating heart. She took in generous gulps of air, but every time she closed her eyes, she saw with staggering lucidity the situation of a couple of minutes ago being replayed over and over in her mind's eye, humiliating her even further.

She bit her lip and cast a shy glance over her shoulder in direction of the closed door to Black Star's room. She had never given much thought to the fact she—a woman—was sharing an abode with a growing young man but the implications of that fact now began to lay heavy on her shoulders, making them stiffen with tension.

What scared Tsubaki the most was that she didn't hate the least bit any of the sensations that she'd begun experiencing lately and the she was eagerly anticipating what would happen next.

As for Black Star?

Black Star thought—as he looked at the sun setting outside the window while he was on his way to the bathroom—that the position of the offensive suited a man of his big stature just perfectly.

After all, the night was still very young… and full of promise, he believed, a confident smirk curling the corners of his lips upwards.

* * *

_A/N:_ This got really out of hand. It was supposed to be less than a thousand words and it turned four times that size… I can't believe myself. I'm not even sure whether I did a good job of it… Sigh. At least it was great fun to write. :D I hope you enjoyed regardless. Please tell me how you found it~

Also! Pachi, I'm working on that one-shot I promised you, honest! It's just harder to write than I'd initially believed. O_o;


	20. Beyond the Goal

_**Beyond the Goal**_

* * *

They were probably going to go down in Shibusen history as the only team which had achieved the hardest part of their mission, and gotten the hardest souls, before achieving the easy ones.

The first soul that Tsubaki had eaten had been that of a demon blade that had been on a sure course towards the path of the Kishin.

It had been the soul of her own flesh and blood—her brother whom she had loved dearly—who had strayed from the rightful path of the warrior.

The tenth soul that they had gathered had been that of a violent, powerful witch that would have slaughtered the entire population of a large American city and forever left a blemish on the life of any survivors.

Right from the very start of their actual soul collecting, even though she had reprimanded him when they had hardly done any actual work in the start, victory had felt bittersweet to Tsubaki. The first time it was because she had had to fight and destroy the soul of her beloved older brother whom she had adored until he had become a demon.

The following times it had been because she realized that the more souls she devoured, the closer they got to their goal.

… And the closer their goal, the closer their parting as partners was.

So it was with a heavy heart that she ate the ninety-eighth soul—the penultimate in their quest for making her a Death Scythe, since they already had the witch's soul they would need as last.

"Heh, that guy was a total pushover!" Black Star exulted, his hands clenched into fists while they rested on his hips. "Then again, he can't really be blamed, because there's no way he could ever be a match for this great me!"

The boy laughed boisterously and Tsubaki couldn't help but smile at his antics. They had come a long way on their journey but some things about Black Star would never change, she reckoned.

His penchant for boasting being one of the key traits that she could never see leaving him in a million years.

When he trained his emerald gaze on her, arduous decisiveness burning brightly in them, she felt a twinge of pain in her chest. His enthusiasm that was usually so contagious would never be able to reach her in this kind of situation.

Not when all she could think of was that soon, very soon, she wouldn't be able to see _anything_ in his eyes anymore.

Because she wouldn't be his partner anymore.

Because she wouldn't be able to stay by his side anymore.

"That's ninety-nine, Tsubaki!" Black Star enthused proudly, a wide grin stretching his lips. "Just one more and you'll be a real Death Scythe like Soul!"

The smile Tsubaki gave her partner was so forced it was more like a grimace but she didn't give him time to notice that because she busied herself with devouring her "meal".

Whether it was because this guy had been exceptionally bad or because of her own mental disposition, after swallowing the thing down, she felt queasy and about ready to throw it up.

The number ninety-nine sounded more like a death sentence than a cause to celebration to the chain-scythe girl, whose gut was twisted with anxiety and a foreboding feeling.

* * *

The night of their graduation as Shibusen students was a fine summer evening. The fortress had been decorated with well-wishing banners and items, filled with all the graduating students and their classmates who wanted to celebrate their success as well. The whole school was filled with festive spirit.

After the official graduation ceremony during the day, Shinigami-sama and Kid had decided to throw another party—much like the one on Christmas Eve for the founding commemoration that had ended rather abruptly much thanks to Medusa's evil schemes—since it was only once that the headmaster's son graduated.

And, as an official evening party, dress code was an absolute must. Everyone had donned on their finest tuxes or dresses for the occasion, giving the whole gathering a really mature and elegant feel.

But even seeing Black Star in a proper suit with matching pants and overcoat and even wearing a tie was not enough to alleviate Tsubaki's melancholy. She had been ridden with the heavy feeling the whole day, having it weigh down on her in everything she did. When she was sure that her partner was starting to pick up on her weird behaviour and the festiveness of the atmosphere inside was becoming too much for her to handle, she made an excuse of needing fresh air and went on the large balcony that the ball room of the school had.

She put her hands on the stone ledge, her gaze rising up to look at the night sky with all the twinkling stars and the moon above. The newly turned Death Scythe sighed deeply, letting her eyes slide shut as she enjoyed the sensation of the pleasant summer breeze caressing her warm sides.

She didn't know how much time she'd spent there, her back bathed by the light of the party going in full swing inside—it may have been seconds or minutes, or even a small eternity. What she did know was that if it had not been for her getting some company on the railing, she may have completely forgotten where she was.

"Whoa, it's really nice here! The air inside is getting really stifling, it's hard to breathe. Like I thought, someone whose halo is about to appear over their head any day now like myself needs a place like this to be able to perform really well on the stage!" Black Star's familiar voice claimed enthusiastically from behind her.

The boy gave her a merry laugh while he made his way to rest with his back against the stone railing of the balcony. She noticed that his ever-present grin had slipped from his facial features though, replaced by a somber, undecipherable look.

"You alright, Tsubaki? The celebration's not getting too much for you to handle, is it?"

A pleasant feeling swelled in her chest at the note of worry she caught hidden very well in her partner's tone. After being by his side for so long and going through thick and thin with him, she had learned to expertly discern even the slightest of change in his voice—something no one else could say.

But after the initial spike of glee, the ever-present dread that had lodged into her gut squashed her hopes, reminding her that the end of their road together was quite imminent.

"I just needed to get a little air, that's all," she said with remarkable ease, considering that her throat felt constricted by the weight of her thoughts.

He just hummed in reply but didn't move away from his position next to her on the balcony railing. He was looking up at the sky as well, that unreadable look still on his face.

While she studied his profile, she finally got the chance to _see_—not just _look_—how he looked in the tux they had found together for the occasion. A smile played on her lips. As if reading her thoughts, he chose that very next moment to loosen his tie and let it hang undone around his neck after unbuttoning the top two buttons of his shirt as well. He heaved a small sigh afterwards, obviously enjoying not being restricted by the offensive objects anymore.

"I was starting to wonder when you'd do that," Tsubaki said with a giggle. "I was really surprised that you even agreed to wear it properly in the first place."

Black Star gave her a lopsided smirk.

"It's an important event, so it's perfect for someone as big as me to stand out among the commoners! Bearing with this kind of ridiculous clothing etiquette is nothing for someone of my stature!" His grin widened, showing two rows of perfectly lined white teeth. "Tonight is our stage since it's our graduation, right? It's only natural that we should shine the brightest!"

She bit on her lip and shifted her gaze to her high heel-clad feet. Indeed, graduation—the bane of her existence. When she had entered Shibusen, she had been looking forward to the event so much—it was hard to believe how much her view had changed in a couple of short years.

And the reason for that was standing right beside her, peering at her profile with a calculating gaze.

"You're finally a Death Scythe like I promised I'd make you, Tsubaki—you should make a happier face than that!" he tried to cheer her up again.

His attempt was in vain. She could see nothing merry about being separated from her partner.

Black Star frowned as he took in her solemn countenance. Just what had gotten into that Tsubaki? Lately it was getting harder and harder to understand her. Girls were really beings from a whole another planet for all the assassin knew.

He sighed dramatically, lifting his arms up in defeat.

"If I knew it would be like this, I wouldn't have made such a promise with you. What's the point of keeping my word if it only makes you show such a heartbroken expression?" he said almost theatrically but at least that begot some kind of reaction from his partner.

"That's not it!" she hurried to tell him, her words bunching together in her haste. Reining in her emotions, she looked to the side opposite of Black Star's and reiterated in a calmer tone, "That's… not it at all."

"Then what is it?"

His tone was completely even, betraying nothing else than the question he had spoken. Tsubaki swallowed thickly and looked away from his penetrating emerald orbs that seemed to see through her very soul.

'I don't want to graduate yet' sounded really stupid and childish. 'I don't want to be separated from you' had an ambiguous sounding to it and she didn't want him to understand her wrongly. 'I don't want to become anyone else's partner' wasn't much better either. Anything Tsubaki could come up as a response to his question didn't seem good enough to her.

So she bit on her lip and stayed silent, settling for just shaking her head instead. She knew that the simple action did not convey even half of what she wanted to say but it was better than not replying to him at all.

She didn't want him to think that she didn't trust him with her worries. She was just too embarrassed by them to voice them aloud.

Black Star sighed again—this time, in resignation—and tilted his head up to look at the stars shining brightly above the two of them. He smiled at the heavens as he remembered looking at a similar view from a hill by her house in her hometown.

It reminded him of another promise he had given her.

"Hey, Tsubaki?" She looked up when he began, blinking a few times in expectation of what he wanted to tell her. "What do you want to do afterwards?"

Her brow rose skeptically over her eyes.

"Afterwards?" she reiterated in a puzzled tone. "Well, after a party it would be good to take a bath and—"

She was cut off by his insistently waved hand even before he spoke up.

"No, no, no—not after _this_." He gave her an odd look before elaborating. "What do you want to do after we've achieved our goal? Have you thought about it?"

Understanding began to dawn on him when he saw horror and dread paint her face before they were wiped from there. She was very quick in composing herself but there was hardly anything she could ever hide from him if he wanted to find out. The fact that she always reacted so honestly to everything definitely worked to her disadvantage as well.

"W-well, I don't know—I've never t-though about it before…" she stuttered, getting flustered by her clumsiness with her words afterward.

Black Star smiled up at the sky again, even though all his attention was actually trained on his partner next to him.

"I've thought about it though," he told her and her shoulders stiffened slightly, even though her curiosity was piqued. She swallowed dryly as she waited for him to continue. "I think we should probably go visit your folks again, since we didn't stay much last time. You must want to tell them the good news in person, right? That would be better than writing it in a letter." He jammed his hands in his pockets, a good-natured grin spreading on his features. "You should stand in the spotlight of your own stage, after all!"

Tsubaki could only stand there, flabbergasted for a second and completely speechless while her brain attempted to reboot itself.

"A-ah, y-you're right. We should tell them in person. After all, I finally graduated from Shibusen and you were the one who made me into a Death Scythe, so we should go tell them that together, you're right." For some reason, she couldn't stop mumbling and even though what he'd said had made her happy at first, she couldn't stop the sinking feeling from settling in her gut.

"Oh, and does your dad teach swordsmanship? I could probably use a few lessons on sword wielding from the professional in your family. It must've been him who taught your brother how to fight with a sword, right? I'm sure he'd be flattered to have such a great man as myself be willing to take lessons from him!" He laughed raucously and she tried to force a smile on her face.

"H-huh? Oh, yes, it was father who taught brother the way of the sword. And I'm sure he would teach you if you ask him but why would you want to learn that?"

Her query earned her a very expressive 'what are you talking about' look from the assassin.

"Huh? Didn't I promise you that I'd achieve what the folks in your family and your brother couldn't? Making you a Death Scythe was just an additional bonus on the way there, since we're both Shibusen students and it's what Shinigami-danna expects. I still have a promise I need to fulfill with you, so it's too early to get too laidback. Swordsmanship skills could be a great boost during fights from now on, so getting your pops to show me some is a must."

He spoke so easily and so matter-of-fact that if not for her deep-rooted uncertainties, she might have felt reassuring by his words.

But her anxieties ran deeper than this. It was a more profound disconcertion that made her lose her cool and her senses.

They could not be soothed by pretty words and past promises.

"Then, when you achieve brother's dream, what then?" she asked so quietly that if not for his super-human hearing, he might not have caught her question.

"What?" he spat out almost incredulously, turning to look at her with a disbelieving look.

She had hung her head against her collarbone so her bangs hid her expression from his view. His eyebrows narrowed as he regarded her posture.

"Beyond that goal, what's next? After you've fulfilled the promise with me and the soul of my ancestors, what do we do next?" Her tone had taken on a sharp edge, and her speech was coming out in hitches.

A note of desperation was creeping into her voice.

Black Star sighed in the beginnings of irritation, rubbing the back of his neck with a hand.

"What's with you tonight, Tsubaki? What do we do, what do we do—we do whatever we want to, right? And, besides, what is this, a game? "If we do that, then what; when we do that too, what's after"—it's getting annoying."

Her hands tightened into fists at that, her teeth gritting together in her mounting vexation.

"What game? Of course it's not a game! How can I think of this so light-heartedly, as if it doesn't matter—!" When she'd snapped she'd looked up and her gaze had locked with his. While she'd seen the calculating look in his eyes, he had seen the frantic, panicked one in hers.

As if suddenly shaken awake from a daydream, she stopped mid-sentence, chewing on her lower lip and turning away from him. She knew that she was probably going too far with this—even getting into a fight with Black Star.

But how could she not? This was important! How could he not realize that?!

Did their partnership mean so little to him?

The assassin heaved a great sigh and rolled his eyes away in the direction opposite of the one Tsubaki was facing. He scratched the back of his head while mulling something over.

"I'm too big of a man to be confined by such dead-set plans as you're trying to make—they're really stifling. Why are you so bent on this anyway? I don't get it."

"You don't care that once our partnership is dissolved, there will be nothing connecting us anymore?"

This time her quiet question was spoken completely evenly, not even a hint of emotion betraying her voice. It made Black Star shift his gaze back to her again. While the words she had spoken—and their meaning—sunk into his mind, he saw the searching look in her navy eyes.

"Huh? What are you talking about? Who said our partnership would be dissolved?"

She forced a smile, even though it was embittered by the disappointment that instantly marred her features after what he'd said.

"We're no longer students of Shibusen, we graduate tonight. The whole point of our partnership was for me to become a Death Scythe with your help. There's no reason for us to remain a team now, is there? Isn't it only natural that our partnership would be dissolved?"

He blinked and he still had that perplexed expression twisting his mouth as he pondered over what she'd just said.

"I don't think Shinigami-danna would break up our team just because of that though. And even if it happened, it's not like there won't be anything at all connecting us."

She shot him an accusatory glance at that, the bitterness and anxiety overflowing from her soul as she pinned her gaze to him then. Once again, he could only blink in confusion at her violent reactions to all he did and said. Was today one of _those_ days in the month for her or something?

He knew better than to voice that aloud though. She seemed worked up enough even without him purposefully trying to annoy her.

And why she was in the first place, he couldn't figure out for the life of him.

"What will be connecting us then?" she demanded, and he sighed again, rubbing his neck. She was getting really punctilious about anything and everything—it was becoming more and more difficult to handle her mood swings.

Could it really be that time of the month?

"We'll still be us, a day from now, a week from now, a year from now—what does it matter if we're graduating Shibusen? You're being really weird, Tsubaki."

"We'll be partners who aren't partners—what kind of connection is that?"

He saw her eyes gleaming with tears that were welling up in them. He swallowed dryly. Hey, hey, was she going to cry now? Had he said something wrong?

"You want me to give you a sort of bond that you can put a name to?"

He'd shifted from nonplussed to dead serious in such rapid succession that she barely had the time to register what he had asked before he took his hand out of his pocket to place it on the railing so as to balance his weight as he leant in towards her.

He'd completely closed all distance between their lips in less than a heartbeat in the most nonchalant manner. His light breath was fanning against her cheek and he was looking at her with those intense, penetrating eyes of his from so close that she couldn't help but clench her eyes shut. She'd been caught so off-guard by his action that she would've pulled away right then—to ask what he was doing and was the meaning of this—if not for his other hand that kept her head firmly in its spot, allowing her no chance of fleeing.

It felt like an eternity until she stopped trying to wiggle out of his grasp and actually responded to his kiss. But when she did, he let his own eyes shut and allowed himself a bit more freedom, sliding his tongue into her mouth and savouring the way she trembled when he licked her lips. They were pliant and yielding against his, and the dominance he'd established as the kiss escalated made him become more and more confident, heightening the passion of the moment.

When he pulled away, her hand that had been clutching on his suit's coat held on even tighter. She was shaking slightly but she made for an amazing sight in that very instant. Her chest was rising and falling quickly with her shortness of breath, pinkness dusted her cheeks as she stared up at him with her wide and hopeful innocent eyes and her lips were swollen from the searing kiss he'd given her.

He smirked at her and gently traced the curve of her fuller lower lip with the thumb of the hand that had been holding the back of her head securely. She blushed prettily under his scrutiny and his mouth twisted in a mischievous grin in response.

"There. That's not a kiss you give to just anyone, right? You tell me what kind of connection that is."

Her heart was skipping so many beats she was starting to wonder if it was even beating at all when he took her hand and began to lead her towards the inside where the party was in its height.

"Now let's go enjoy our graduation! There's no way we're going to let Kid and the rest hog the stage all by themselves while the stars of the night are absent!"

For the first time in months, she felt herself smile—widely and genuinely, without anything gnawing at her heart or lurking at the back of her mind. She realized now how silly she had been to have freaked out so much when she should've known that the bond she'd built with Black Star couldn't be severed so easily.

But if she had to be frank—she thought while she squeezed his hand and touched the index finger of her free one to her lips where she could still feel his presence lingering—she'd really enjoyed his method of persuasion for seeing his point more than she would probably ever be able to let on.

* * *

"Oh? But I already have Spirit-kun as my weapon. And since you guys work so well together, there's really no reason to disband your team, is there?"

That's what Shinigami-sama had said with a perplexed tone and a slightly comical tilt of his head when Tsubaki and Black Star had approached them with the newly graduated Death Scythe's query.

The Nakatsukasa had been so shocked that she had lost control of her lower jaw.

"B-but… As a team, wasn't becoming a Death Scythe our purpose?" the girl asked shakily, stumbling over her words as she spoke.

To her side, Black Star was cackling uncontrollably, obviously hugely amused by the grim reaper's response to his partner.

"Well, yes, as a _student_ team, I guess. Now that you've moved beyond that goal and you're no longer students, you can be one of the teams that help Shibusen maintain order in the continent." The Shinigami then leaned in with his large hand to his mask's lower side, as if wanting to tell them something conspiratorially. "You didn't think I let one-star technicians and weapons handle the really dangerous missions out there, did you?"

Tsubaki had only managed to blink her eyes dumbly for a few seconds, her mouth still hanging open and her mind still drawing blanks. Shinigami-sama laughed merrily as he turned his back on them.

"All right then! I think that's all for today! You two will stay on stand-by for the time being, until there's a job I need you to handle! Dismissed," the grim reaper said as enthusiastically as ever, prolonging the syllables of the last word.

It was not until they were walking home that Tsubaki finally managed to regain control of her thought train and her lower jaw.

"See? I told you he wouldn't disband our team because of this. The danna isn't that kind of guy. You were getting worried over nothing," Black Star said through a laugh, a good-natured grin secure on his features.

The raven-haired young woman let a smile slowly blossom on her lips as she walked as well, her gaze cast to the ground she treaded.

"Indeed, you were right," she mumbled softly, enjoying the feel of the early summer evening that was coming upon them. "I should've listened to you."

As the sun was setting from a long day of strenuous shining, it cast on the sidewalk the elongated shadow of their walking frames and joined hands.

* * *

_A/N:_ I _hate_ with a passion tossing in Japanese words in my_ English_ fics (it's a serious pet peeve of mine), but I feel that Black Star's way of referring to Shinigami is unique and very indicative of the respect he holds for the man, so I had to keep it. Forgive me for that.

I think the story might've come out a bit twisted from what I initially meant it to be, and there might be some mistakes I made while typing but I'm too sleepy to proof-read now, so I hope you can oversee any typos and such in favour of getting to read it now instead of tomorrow. I thought that it would be interesting to see Tsubaki panicking about what would happen beyond them achieving their goal so I had to write this. :D I hope it was an enjoyable read~

As always, reviews make for a happy and more productive Dark Hope Assassin~


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